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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (28866)	1/28/1998 3:18:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

DVD-ROM sales '98, '99(IDC should say 99= 40M)................. DVD-ROM Drive Sales to Top 20 Million in _99: Format Won't Replace CD-ROM Until After 2000 <Picture><Picture><Picture> Software publishers won't have a compelling reason to put content on DVD-ROM until at least the end of the year because drive shipments aren't expected to account for more than 10 percent of total optical drives sold until then. According to recent data from market research firm InfoTech, DVD-ROM drive sales will reach 6.7 million units in 1998 and 24.2 million units in 1999. That installed base pales in comparison to CD-ROM drives, which reached 74.1 million in 1997, according to InfoTech. While acknowledging DVD-ROM unit shipments are about six months behind where they expected them to be, market researchers at International Data Corp. (IDC) believe DVD-ROM's ramp will be quicker than InfoTech. IDC expects roughly 10 million units to ship this year, representing about 12 percent of the 82 million combined market for CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. IDC sees that number jumping dramatically to 40 million units in 1998. Both firms agree that DVD-ROM drives accounted for less than 1 percent of all optical drives sold in 1997. InfoTech projects DVD-ROM drive sales will reach 250 million units in 2002 to surpass CD-ROM drives in 2002. IDC expects the format shift to occur in 2001. Despite the statistics, publishers are beginning to consider DVD-ROM a viable platform. Based on interviews with publishers, InfoTech expects the number of DVD-ROMs available this year to reach 500, up from 60 available last year. Analysts expect more publishers to choose DVD-ROM as their media of choice when Windows 98 ships with drivers to support it. Barring any other delays or Justice Department intervention, the OS should ship early in the second quarter. Will Businesses Bite? One obstacle that could hamper DVD-ROM sales is slow adoption by corporate users. Wolfgang Schlichting, an IDC analyst, said the rewritable CD (CD-RW) drive quickly is reaching price parity with DVD-ROM. Within the next few months corporate users will be able to purchase a CD-RW drive for the same price as the DVD drive with the required decoders. As for rewritable DVD, the market research firms offered similar technology adoption statistics in the short term. IDC predicts 150,000 units will ship this year compared with InfoTech's forecast of 225,000. For 1999, IDC forecasts less than 1 million and InfoTech posits 925,000 drives. For the year 2000, IDC is more optimistic about growth, predicting shipments of more than 3 million, compared with InfoTech's forecast of 1.8 million. InfoTech expects rewritable to follow the same migration path as CD-R, with the big sales jump coming in the third or fourth year of the format's availability. (InfoTech, 802/763-2097; IDC, 508/872-8200.)