SHORTAGES OF VITAL COMPONENTS for DVD players are threatening an expected surge in sales of PCs, a Japanese newspaper claims today. This morning's Nihon Keizai Shimbun claims that optical pickups for DVD players are in terribly short supply, and it estimates that it will drastically affect sales of machines that use the technology. Factories are unable to keep up with demand for the parts, expected tobe used in 18 million machines this year.
And, the same report claims, sales of digital cameras will also suffer because there's a big shortage of charge coupled devices (CCDs) used in the machines. It quotes reps from Casio, Fuji, Olympus and others as confirming earlier reports that launches of several models have been canned. That's likely to have a knock-on effect on other suppliers of components, such as flash memory modules. There appears to be little prospect of the manufacturers of CCD devices, the virtual eye of a digital camera, being able to step up supply sufficiently to meet the demands of the camera makers.
News source: The Inq
