Philips and Benq form joint optical venture

East met west as Taiwan's BenQ and Netherlands' Philips Electronics signed a deal to create a joint venture in the optical storage market. The new company, Philips BenQ Digital Storage will develop, design and market optical disk drives for the PC market. Taiwan capital city Taipei is to be the home of the new joint venture.

In a statement the partners said they were aiming at a market share of 15 per cent in the mid term, they estimate the market to demand 200,000,000 units a year, and to be worth 8billion Euros.

"This joint venture concludes the series of measures taken to bring Optical Storage back to profitability and will position us well for continued participation in the data segment in a profitable way," said Arthur van der Poel, a board member for Philips.

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