BenQ has upgraded its 16x DVD Dual DL burner (DW1620) to include support for DVD disc writing speeds of 16x DVD-R. BenQ launched the DW1620 at the end of June with writing speeds of 16x DVD+R and 8x DVD-R.
According to BenQ’s Taiwan managing director Danny Yao, the upgraded DW1620 will be priced at US$162 in the local market Taiwanese market.
BenQ has shipped around two million DVD burners in the six months of this year, said Alpha Tsai, associate vice president for the company’s imaging network business group. Tsai indicated.the company expects its monthly shipments, both OEM production and own-brand sales, to grow from 600,000 DVD burners currently to one million units by the end of this year, totaling seven million units for the year.
In the local Taiwanese market, BenQ was the market leader in the first half of this year, as it sold 36,000 DVD burners, Yao pointed out. The company hopes to have monthly shipments of more than 10,000 DVD burners by the end of this year and grab 50% of the market, he added.
BenQ mainly produces optical disc drives at its two overseas factories in Malaysia and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province (China). Currently, only the Malaysia factory produces DVD burners but the Suzhou factory will begin production this month, with output expected to increase from 100,000 units in August to 500,000 in December, Tsai noted. The two factories will have a total monthly capacity of one million DVD burners by the end of this year, Tsai added.
