Lite-On competes with BenQ in DVD recorders

Taipei, June 17, 2004 (CENS)--Lite-On Information Technology Corp. is making a head-on competition with rival BenQ Corp. in the field of DVD (digital versatile disk) recorders.

Lite-On boasted it has recently received big-ticket orders for consumer DVD recorders from Wal-Mart of the U.S., which will be put on store shelves starting from July. BenQ said it would begin sales of its first spate of DVD recorders by the end of June.

Lite-On introduced the product for the first time last year with sales far lower than expected. After one year of sales development, the company is said to have secured orders from Wal-Mart, suggesting the company has won recognition from international-class firm for the production of DVD recorders.

BenQ said it has recently introduced its first model of DVD recorder with the unit price tag of NT$12,900 (US$385 at US$1:NT$33.5), and will launch another two types in the second half of this year.

Currently, Lite-On is a little big faster than BenQ in developing consumer DVD recorders. But BenQ boasted it would catch up with Lite-On because it would settle orders in the second half of this year.

BenQ said the global DVD recorder market won't take off until next year because the prices of the products are still high, digital signal sources are not popular, and some vital world sports events are not yet opened.

Thanks to booming sales of projectors, BenQ anticipated it would see projector sales hit NT$15 billion (US$447.76 million) this year, up 50% from the projected level. The company said it shipped 130,000 projectors in the first five months of this year. It targets to ship between 400,000 and 500,000 projectors this year, which will enable it to garner a 13% global market share.

In addition to projectors, BenQ also has other popular home entertainment products including notebook computers, MP3 players, LCD TVs and DVD recorders. With a sales goal of NT$30 billion (US$895.52 million) this year, the company saw sales achieve NT$8.084 billion (US$241.31 million) in the first four months of this year, rising fivefold from the same period of last year.

The company noted in the fourth quarter of this year it would introduce a new type of DVD recorders embedded with hard drive for boosting memories. The company will grab the massive business opportunities of the Christmas booming sales season by introducing the new product to the market.