Lite-On IT said that it shipped more than 700,000 CD-RW drives in July! In the first half of 2001, the company’s CD-RW drive shipments totaled 1.34 million units. With new orders and its latest 24x CD-RW drive line, Lite-On IT expects to ship 3.45 million CD-RW drives in the second half, for a total of 4.8 million units for the whole year. Currently, the world’s top three CD-RW drive manufacturers are LG.Philips, Sony and Lite-On IT. In June, all three companies shipped around 500,000 units, but coming into July, Lite-On IT’s shipments soared to over 700,000 drives, exceeding the other two rivals. Lite-On IT indicated that the major shipment growth was due to the new orders from international PC heavyweights.

Lite-On IT pointed out that in addition to CD-RW drives, it also shipped 6.72 million CD-ROM drives in the first half, thus becoming the second-largest producer worldwide, next only to LG.Philips. Given that CD-ROM drives are now gradually being replaced with DVD-ROM, Lite-On IT predicts its CD-ROM drive shipments in the second half may drop to 5.3 million units, but it still might beat LG.Philips to first place. To diversify its product portfolio, Lite-On IT will also launch 8x slim-type DVD-ROM drives and 32x CD-RW drives (!) in November