Yamaha Gets Out of the CDRW Business


Less than 12 months after releasing its market-leading F1 CDRW, Yamaha has announced it will leave the PC CDRW business. The company will continue to supply CDRWs for audio and music applications, CDR Info reports.

Yamaha will remain in the CDRW media business, and will continue to guarantee products for the duration of the warranty period. However, CDRW sales will cease on March 31, 2003. The company expects to lose an estimated 1 billion yen as a result of withdrawal. The mid-range market had been Yamaha's target, but the firm said in a statement that the sector had shrunk "dramatically", and that it would be "imprudent" to invest further. Yamaha had tried to expand its market share with the F1 and its built-in disc engraving capabilities.

Yamaha cited the installation of CDRWs as original equipment in many PC desktops and notebooks, particularly DVD-capable combo drives, as a factor behind its decision to withdraw.

Rumors concerning Yamaha's possible withdrawal from the consumer CDRW business had been circulating for some time. Yamaha designs and builds its own mechanisms and supplies CDRWs to OEMs. Yamaha CDRWs are also generally considered the best or second-best mechanisms in the business, next to Plextor.

It is not clear whether Yamaha will seek to enter the recordable DVD PC market. Yamaha manufactures DVD+R/+RW video recorders, but has not entered the PC DVD recordable sector, which is a major growth sector.

Analysis: Better get me one of those F1s before they all disappear. We suspect Yamaha was a victim of the cheaper and cheaper LG, LiteOn and Benq recorders that are flooding the market at next to nothing. As with PCs, people never seem to know that you get what you pay for. It's a shame Yamaha don't make a DVD-R drive.