Eastern Asia Technology (Eastech), a Taiwanese-invested company listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), expects to ship between 400,000 and 500,000 DVD recorders in 2004, up from 150,000 this year, as chairman and CEO Tim Liou said to DigiTimes yesterday. The company is a major ODM producer of DVD recorders and supplies leading vendors including Philips Electronics, Sony and Sharp, Liou said. Out of estimated shipments of 3.6 million DVD recorders this year, 500,000 were ODM-produced, according to Liou.

Eastech also claims to be the world’s largest OEM maker of DVD home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems. Its expects its shipments of this product to grow 20% in 2004 from 1.5 million units this year, Liou said.

The company will also increase production of DVD players next year in anticipation of global demand rising to 70 million units from 50 million this year.

With expertise drawn from the manufacturing of speaker systems, MP3 players and other audio/video solutions, Eastech recently began OEM production of 20-inch LCD TVs, Liou said, adding that the company will expand to manufacturing larger-size models in 2004.

Eastech also has a chance to land more OEM orders for digital TVs after 2005 as world-leading vendors like Philips, Sony, JVC and Samsung Electronics are expected to begin outsourcing the products to OEM makers, Liou said.