Supported by rising DVD recorder shipments by Taiwanese
manufacturers, major DVD recorder chip suppliers, including
Philips Semiconductors, Cirrus Logic, ESS Technology and LSI
Logic, are expected to each ship over 100,000 of the chips to
Taiwan this month, according to DigiTimes.
While Philips and Cirrus Logic are expected to see higher
shipments, all four companies have enjoyed rising sales of their
DVD recorder chips since they started volume production in the
second or third quarter of this year, sources said.
Philips is the largest DVD recorder chip supplier to Taiwan.
Cirrus Logic, ranked the second, has gained market share by
pricing its integrated MPEG-2 chips up to US$5 cheaper than its
competitors, sources said.
Demand for DVD recorder chips has grown significantly as prices
for DVD recording devices continue to drop. FOB (free on board)
prices for digital video recorders (DVRs) offered by Taiwanese
companies have dropped to below US$250 recently, while the retail
prices have plunged below US$300 compared to US$500 in the first
half of this year, according to sources. Taiwan is expected to
ship up to 800,000 DVRs this year, according to estimates by
Taiwanese optical storage makers.
Anticipating robust growth of the market, major international DVD
chip suppliers estimate that their monthly DVD recorder chip
shipments to Taiwan will each exceed 200,000 units in the first
half of 2004.
Sales in the second half of next year, however, appear to be less
optimistic as many Taiwanese chip suppliers are expected to join
the competition during the period, the international suppliers
said.
According to sources, Philips’s monthly DVD recorder chip
shipments to Taiwan first surpassed 100,000 units in the second
quarter of this year. Cirrus Logic, which started shipments in
June, is estimated to have shipped about 500,000 DVD recorder
chips until the end of November.
Thanks to orders from Taiwan-based optical storage drive maker
Lite-On IT, LSI’s monthly DVD recorder chip shipments to Taiwan
also reached 100,000 units early this quarter, sources said. LSI
announced its deal with Lite-On IT in a press release on December
1. According to sources, Lite-On IT is taking over 10,000 of the
chips per month from LSI.
ESS’s Taiwan DVD recorder chip shipments are expected to total
500,000 units during the second half of this year, sources said.
In addition, the company is shipping over 10,000 of the chips to
South Korea-based Samsung Electronics per month, sources said.
Samsung has adopted ESS’s system-on-chip (SoC) DVD chip for its
DVD-VHS combo players, according to previous press release from
ESS.