Last week, Maxell announced that it was shutting down its media manufacturing business at the end
of March and would be outsourcing production to other companies. DigiTimes is now reporting that Maxell is likely to place OEM orders
with one of Taiwan's media manufacturers.
As Hitachi Maxell, one of the global top-five vendors of blank optical discs,
has decided to stop self-production of blank CD-R, DVD+R/-R and blue-laser optical discs in March 2008 but outsource production and
maintain own-brand marketing, leading Taiwan-based makers are likely to obtain OEM orders from the Japan-based client, according to
industry sources in Taiwan.
Although makers of optical discs in China can offer lower prices, Taiwan-based makers have the upper
hand in competition for Hitachi Maxell's OEM orders because of the higher quality of their products, the sources pointed out. Among
Taiwan-based makers, CMC Magnetics, Ritek and Daxon Technology stand a better chance than others of obtaining orders, the sources
indicated.
Most of the media sold in the US under Maxell brand is manufactured by Ritek. It would not surprise me if the
company used them for the Japanese market as well. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes.