Despite Sony’s Blu-ray victory over HD-DVD, ordinary DVD burners will still be mass-market volume products in the PC industry until 2012, IDC claims.
However, as the PC market’s adoption of DVD burners becomes saturated and increasingly commoditised, Blu-ray adoption will accelerate in 2009 and Blu-ray drives will become the majority of the total market value in 2012.
“DVD burners will remain the bread-and-butter business for optical disc drive (ODD)vendors,” said Wolfgang Schlichting, research director, removable storage at IDC.
“Despite Blu-ray’s win over HD-DVD in the format war, Blu-ray drive adoption will be limited in 2008 because of its high price and only moderate consumer interest.”
IDC said DVD burners will continue the race to become a commodity market. Aggressive volume manufacturers will continue to drive down the price, pushing technology leaders out of the mainstream ODD market.
Blu-ray disc (BD) won the format war over HD DVD, but similar to DVD and DVD burners, Blu-ray will need a three- to five-year ramp to reach mass-market volumes. New, affordable BD-ROM drives will lead the way for the BD format’s adoption.
IDC forecasts that over 100 million Blu-ray drives will ship worldwide in 2011.
By John Kennedy
