DVD replicators get ready to ramp DVD............................
onlineinc.com
WHAT THE ANALYSTS SAY
Though many replicators have begun producing DVD discs, some are only now beginning to expand their facilities to accommodate the new medium, given the sluggish early growth of the title market.
Computer industry analysts are anticipating a rapid, almost immediate rise in the amount of DVD-ROM titles that will begin shipping. "This year the hardware market will grow, but by 1999 you'll start seeing a lot more DVD-ROM titles released," explains Julie Schwerin, President of Woodstock, Vermont-based market analyst InfoTech.
Schwerin estimates that the initial push to market DVD-ROM drives will happen, during second quarter 1998, and anticipates that 46.7 million of them will be sold by the year 2000. Continued production of the drives will motivate software publishers to further their DVD-ROM output, so replicators will need to accommodate large orders for that format. Most are already prepared to do so.
"I'd say that 80 to 90 percent of the replicators that we've been in contact with now have DVD-ROM capacity," says Jennifer Doyle, Editor of Simba Information's Multimedia, Entertainment, and Technology Reports. "Close to 100 percent will by the end of 1998." |
