Deepak Puri on challenges in the IT storage and peripherals industry and the road ahead...
We are living in an age where digitisation of information is happening at an exponential pace. And the year gone by was no exception. The information explosion continued without any respite and so does the demand for cost efficient storage.
As far as the global optical media industry is concerned, it steadily recovered and is driven by a confluence of factors - including continuing consolidation of capacity, growth in consumer demand and softening of input costs. Players further consolidated their positions. And no doubt, in India too, with continued growth in consumer demand for optical media, industry variables have improved and are reverting to normal levels. In such a scenario, efficient manufacturers with scale should benefit from the consolidation, which has followed the recent turbulent period in the industry. While the estimated global demand for blank optical media products was 19 billion units in 2006, representing a growth of 15% over 2005, the year also saw the commercial shipments of next generation formats like the HD DVD and Blu-ray. However, their shipments are still small but we expect these formats to be the key growth driver for the industry. But, this does not mean that demand for CDR/RW format will slow down. Consumer demand for the CDR/RW format will continue to grow in Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern markets. There are also certain emerging corporate applications and niche segments like printable media and LightScribe, which are seeing a rapid growth in the CDR/RW space. Moreover, shifting consumer preferences, increasing drive penetration and improving price-value proposition of DVDR/RW media is leading to a sharp growth for the format. We expect DVDR/RW shipments to clock a 43% growth in 2007.
We are living in an age where digitisation of information is happening at an exponential pace. And the year gone by was no exception. The information explosion continued without any respite and so does the demand for cost efficient storage.
As far as the global optical media industry is concerned, it steadily recovered and is driven by a confluence of factors - including continuing consolidation of capacity, growth in consumer demand and softening of input costs. Players further consolidated their positions. And no doubt, in India too, with continued growth in consumer demand for optical media, industry variables have improved and are reverting to normal levels. In such a scenario, efficient manufacturers with scale should benefit from the consolidation, which has followed the recent turbulent period in the industry. While the estimated global demand for blank optical media products was 19 billion units in 2006, representing a growth of 15% over 2005, the year also saw the commercial shipments of next generation formats like the HD DVD and Blu-ray. However, their shipments are still small but we expect these formats to be the key growth driver for the industry. But, this does not mean that demand for CDR/RW format will slow down. Consumer demand for the CDR/RW format will continue to grow in Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern markets. There are also certain emerging corporate applications and niche segments like printable media and LightScribe, which are seeing a rapid growth in the CDR/RW space. Moreover, shifting consumer preferences, increasing drive penetration and improving price-value proposition of DVDR/RW media is leading to a sharp growth for the format. We expect DVDR/RW shipments to clock a 43% growth in 2007.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist)
No comments:
Post a Comment