Experts at a seminar on the strategy of developing chinas digital audio-visual products held here recently.
09/18/97
Xinhua news agency - ceis
(copyright 1997)
Statistics show that over the past three years, china has witnessed a rapid growth in its vcd player production from 600,000 units in 1995 to five million in 1996 and the output is expected to be more than 10 million this year. The sharp increase, according to the experts, has gone beyond peoples expectations. With the strong rising of the famous chinese brands of Sshinco and Idall vcd players, the home-made vcd players have dominated Chinas domestic market. To date, China has become the worlds largest vcd player market as well as the worlds largest vcd player manufacturer, the participants said, adding that many chinese enterprises are now closely following the advanced DVD technologies. The Shinco electronics group of East China Jiangsu province has become one of the first group of members of the international DVD alliance.
People here believe that the digital revolution is of far-reaching significance in the audio/visual field. With the deepening of the revolution, the old global a/v market pattern will be broken, which to many enterprises is a good opportunity to divide up the market and grab more market shares. To usher in the 21st century, a digital era, Chinas ministry of electronics industry has listed the digital a/v products in the countrys ninth five-year plan (1996-2000) and regarded it as a new potential point of economic growth. Besides, digital a/v products have also been high on the list of investment of the state planning commission and the state economic and trade commission. China now boasts about 300 vcd player manufacturers and more enterprises are investing in the trade, the experts said. The expansion of production of some enterprises and the fierce price wars have pushed some powerful VCR producers to the forefront in this field while some enterprises are facing the fate of being edged out of the market because of their poor quality products.
The experts pointed out that although China is a large VCD player producer, yet it is not powerful enough because it still has not acquired certain key technologies. Besides, only a few enterprises have mastered the technologies for designing and producing encode board and none of them have the decoding IC technology.
The experts anticipate that a DVD player boom will emerge soon. As more and more enterprises have gone into operation or are going to engage in DVD player production, the seminar participants said, the related state departments should exercise a macro-control of the industry so as to avoid unnecessary losses.
According to the seminar, the ministry of electronics industry will soon issue production licenses to all VCD player manufacturers in the country. The seminar also discussed topics on the up-to-date VCD, DVD and Digital TV technologies and their development, the existing market situation, the challenge from overseas digital technology and products, and ways to avoid overlapping investment and regulate market competition, so that the manufacturers will be able to embark on an economy of large scale. |
