History 2001: CMC and Ritek Add CR-R Capacity

While it is clear that we now have a surplus of CD-R media, this fact has not prevented Taiwanese firms Ritek and CMC Magnetics, the two largest manufacturers of the media in the world, from planning new facilities.

Ritek plans to set up shop in USA, Australia and in Europe (Germany, Northern Ireland and the UK) in order to avoid potential problems from the European Union’s anti-dumping regulations currently under investigation, as they once were with floppy disks at the site in Cramlington, Northumberland, UK.

To this end, Ritek has decided to commit $9.5 million to set-up an overseas holding, Magenta Lane Investment, focusing on investments in pre-recording media operations and overseas capacity expansion.

Meanwhile, CMC plans to expand its sites in Taiwan and Mexico, and both companies also have plans for China. Let’s hope they don’t complain if prices drop again in the future, after the recent hike …

CMC predicts the opposite, like many other firms (Imation, Memorex, Verbatim, etc.) and stated that the unit price of CD-R would achieve $.30 in 3Q01 and will rise in the future.

It also indicated that it had finally reached an accord on the payment of CD-R royalties to Philips. The company will pay no more than $.035 per disc this year, compared to $.045 previously. Then the price will go down to $0.040 in 2002, and climb back up to $.045 the following year.

If, however, we take a look at the official Web site licensing.philips.com (Closed, Ed.), which lists companies that have licensed the CD-R, the following Taiwanese companies are listed: Acer Media Technology, eTop Navigator Technology, Grand Advance Technology, Lead Data, Nan Ya Plastics, Prodisc Technoogy and Ritek.

There is no indication of any CMC license, except for CD-RW.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 163 on August 2001 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.