Lite-On IT, the world’s largest maker of DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives, said on Monday that the company aims to ship five million slim-type combo drives next year, threatening Quanta Storage’s leading position, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News.

Michael Gong, general manager of Lite-On IT’s optical disc drive business unit, said due to falling prices of CD-RW, DVD-ROM and CD-ROM drives, the company will accelerate its penetration of the slim-type and desktop combo drive markets next year.

Lite-On IT said last month that it targets shipping three million CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drives next year.

Gong said the company will kick off volume production of desktop combo drives in March, with 2003 shipments targeted at over two million units. The quote prices of the slim-type and desktop combo drives are US$90 and US$60, respectively. Their respective gross margins are 30% and 20%, Gong added.

It is estimated that Lite-On IT will ship 32 million optical storage drives this year, of which CD-ROM and CD-RW drives each took a 40% portion and DVD-ROM drives 20%.

Unfazed by Lite-On IT, Quanta Storage president Jen-jie Chien said slim-type combo drive shipments would increase to 70% of its total drive shipments from 50% now. In addition, the company will launch rewritable DVD drives for desktop computers in the second quarter of next year.

In the third quarter of this year, Quanta outpaced market leader LG Electronics (LGE) and for the first time ranked as the largest combo drive supplier.

It is estimated that Quanta will ship over three million slim-type drives this year, of which 50% were combo drives, CD-ROM drives 25% and DVD-ROM drives 25%.

Both companies will use rewritable DVD chip solutions from Mediatek.