OEM quotations for 16x DVD burners have dropped to about US$40 due to intense competition for orders from leading vendors.

The vendors include Pioneer, NEC, Lite-On IT, BenQ, HLDS (Hitachi-LG Data Storage) and TSST (Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology), according to Taiwan-based makers of optical disc drives (ODDs).

The new price represent a drop of 12-20% from the recent OEM prices of US$45-50. However, there is still room for further decreases in the OEM price of 16x DVD burners in the second half of this year, but the cuts are expected to be much smaller, as the vendors’ gross margins have already declined to low levels, the sources pointed out.

From DigiTimes