TDK Plans to Cease CD, DVD Production

March 8, 2006 By Geoff Duncan

TDK has announced it plans to stop making recordable CDs and DVDs due to low market prices and increasing costs for raw materials.

TDK has announced it plans to cease making recordable CD and DVD media this May, closing the doors on is Luxembourg manufacturing facility. According to a company statement, declining market prices for recordable media and increased costs of raw materials led to the decision.

The company’s European facility was established in 1990, and has the capacity to produce seven million CD-Rs and eight million DVD-Rs per month. By closing the facility and withdrawing from the CD/DVD media market, TDK has revised its profit forecasts for the year downwards by about $366 million.

TDK says the company will continue to market blank media under its own name, but the media will actually be ordered from other manufacturers. TDK plans to manufacture Blu-ray media at its facility in Japan, focussing on high-margin, value-added products.

Showing 2 comments

Ian Bell and Dan Gaul at 10:25am 9th March 2006 Thanks for sharing that with us Patrick. Thankfully TDK is staying in business with Blu-Ray and possible HD-DVD production, however it sounds like they will only be produced in Japan for the time being.

I new a guy that used to work for Sony's CD plant in Springfield Oregon back in the mid 90's. That place has long since shut down unfortunately.
Patrick at 5:50am 9th March 2006 This is sad news for me, as I helped build -in a small way- one of TDK's CD-R plants back in 1997. I was there to when the plant was bare concrete all the way through clean room start up and then to full production.

The CD-R plant and the entire TDK factory were amazing places, with advanced cargo robots and unique production methods unlike anything I've seen since. Naturally, TDK discs have always held a special sentiment for me and I was so proud the day I bought a spindle of discs made in the plant I helped make.

They closed that CD-R plant and adjacent VHS factory in 2001 and shifted production to cheaper overseas factories. Now the cheaper overseas factories have themselves closed down. What a sad thing.