Worldwide optical disk sales (1/2 million DVD-ROM in 1997).........................
Optical disk drive shipments to exceed 70 million units in 1997, boosted by CD-ROM drives, plus initial DVD-ROM sales
Business Wire - August 15, 1997 12:01
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 1997-- CD format disk drives are one of the fastest growing product families of the decade, with healthy shipment increases underway for CD-ROM read-only drives, CD-R/CD-RW writable drives, and the new DVD-ROM 4.7 gigabyte read-only models, according to the recently released 1997 DISK/TREND Report on optical disk drives.
Starting with annual shipments of less than a million drives at the beginning of the 1990's, the 1997 market for CD-ROM drives is expected to exceed 66 million, supplemented by 2.2 million CD-R and CD-RW drives, plus more than 500 thousand new DVD-ROM models. Total shipments are forecasted to continue growing throughout the rest of the decade, but CD-ROM drives will begin to decline in 1999, with DVD-ROM drives taking over leadership of read-only drive shipments in 2000. By 2000, worldwide shipments of all optical disk drives are forecasted at 106 million, with sales revenues topping $10 billion.
Here are other highlights from the 1997 DISK/TREND Report on optical disk drives:
-- CD-ROM product life cycles have been extremely short during the last few years. During the last year, shipment leadership in the industry passed from drives with 8 times the transfer rate of the original CD-ROM drive to "24X" drives. A further transition to 32X is anticipated by the end of 1997, but this may be the last significant CD-ROM generation. Industry interest is shifting to DVD-ROM drives, which are also expected to experience a similar speed race.
-- Writable versions of CD format drives have grown rapidly in shipments, as retail drive prices dropped below $500 in recent years. 1996 shipments reached 1.4 million drives, and the DISK/TREND Report forecast for 2000 is 4.7 million. Current shipments are dominated by write-once CD-R drives, widely used in business and professional applications which require quantities of disks too small to justify the cost of the mastering process for mass duplication. However, shipments of rewritable CD-RW drives are starting to take off in 1997 and will replace write-once drives during the next few years. In the meantime, the first rewritable DVD-RAM have been announced, and it is forecasted that they will provide the majority of 2000 shipments.
-- Booming shipments of CD-ROM drives have created a significant business market for CD-ROM disk towers and automated libraries. Rapidly growing shipments of towers, which consist of a stack of drives ready to be loaded with disks, will reach an estimated total of 47 thousand in 1997. CD format disk library unit shipments are down in 1997, at 456 thousand, due to the changing usage of CD minichangers by a single large computer manufacturer. The overall market is expanding, however, and CD format library shipments are expected to grow again in subsequent years. Other optical disk libraries, generally utilized with high capacity optical drives in enterprise system applications, are also increasing in shipments, with the larger libraries growing at a faster rate.
-- Other writable optical disk drives with capacities less than 2 gigabytes increased shipments 98% in 1996, on the strength of increasing 3.5 inch magneto-optical drive shipments, stimulated by lower prices and higher disk capacities. However, it is expected that the capacities of competitive magnetic rigid disk drives will increase even faster during the next few years, putting a damper on future growth of small MO drives. High-end optical disk applications with major companies are expected to see rapid growth as new high capacity 5.25 inch MO drives achieve wider use, with shipments of drives with capacities over 2 gigabytes reaching 432 thousand units in 2000.
-- 53 companies now make optical disk drives, with 44 headquartered in Asian countries. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., repeated as the sales revenue leader in 1996, with 18.4% of the total. It's a different picture for the 64 manufacturers of optical disk libraries and towers, with 36 firms headquartered in the United States. Hewlett-Packard led in 1996 sales revenues, holding 19.2% of the worldwide total.
In addition to sales revenue and unit shipment projections for optical disk drives in four separate product groups, plus optical disk drive libraries and CD-ROM towers in five groups, the DISK/TREND Report provides statistics and analysis on average noncaptive selling prices, competitive market shares of optical disk drive manufacturers, and a review of competing data storage technologies. The report also contains basic product specifications on 335 optical disk drives, 271 optical disk libraries and 213 CD-ROM towers. Profiles are provided on 123 existing and former manufacturers of optical disk drives, libraries and towers, including 51 with corporate headquarters in the United States, 60 in Asia and 12 in Europe.
The new study on optical disk drives was released as part of the series of four 1997 DISK/TREND Reports, detailed annual business reviews of the worldwide disk drive industry published by DISK/TREND, Inc. Separate reports on removable data storage and disk drive arrays will be published in August and October, and a new report on magnetic disk drives was released in June, 1997.
The 1997 DISK/TREND Report on optical disk drives is priced at $2,110. Subscriptions to the complete 1997 DISK/TREND Report, including the reports on disk drive arrays and removable data storage, plus the individual reports on optical and magnetic rigid disk drives, are available at $7,044 by contacting DISK/TREND, Inc., 1925 Landings Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043, or through the company's Worldwide Web site, disktrend.com .
OPTICAL DISK DRIVES
Worldwide Forecast
unit shipments 1996 ---------------------------------------
in thousands Shipments 1997 1998 1999 2000
--------- -------- -------- -------- ---------
CD FORMAT DRIVES 55,570.4 66,752.9 78,179.0 88,455.0 99,181.0
read-only
CD FORMAT DRIVES 1,418.5 2,239.8 3,116.2 3,901.0 4,702.0
writable
READ/WRITE DRIVES 1,398.0 1,783.4 2,049.3 2,099.5 1,813.0
less than 2
gigabytes
READ/WRITE DRIVES 8.9 23.9 67.6 195.8 432.2
more than 2
gigabytes -------- -------- --------- -------- --------
TOTAL, ALL DRIVES 58,395.8 70,800.0 83,412.1 94,651.3 106,128.2
+36.1% +21.2% +17.8% +13.5% +12.1%
CD format drives include CD and DVD types, and read/write
drives include write-once, rewritable and multifunction types.
Source: 1997 DISK/TREND Report
Note to Editors: For additional information, see the attached shipment summary, or call Jim Porter or Bob Katzive, 650-961-6209
DISK/TREND reports are detailed market studies on the worldwide disk drive industry, with all data verified by field research. Now in its 21st year, DISK/TREND has tracked the disk drive industry longer than any other market research company. |
