The shortage of pick-up heads (PUHs) experienced by leading manufacturers of DVD burners since late 2004 eased in the beginning of this quarter, according to Lite-On IT and BenQ, the top two makers of DVD burners in Taiwan. The short supply of PUHs was mainly because continual drops in retail prices for 16x DVD burners that in turn triggered heavy demand to which the supply of PUHs had increasingly lagged behind, Lite-On IT and BenQ pointed out.

Lite-On IT was only able to deliver 60%-70% of its order volume for DVD burners due to the tight supply of PUHs, while BenQ gave first priority to OEM clients and reduced output for own-brand sales to 200,000 DVD burners a month during the period, according to the two companies.

More information available at digitimes.com.