TDK Corporation announced today it is withdrawing from the manufacturing of recordable CD and DVD products. The company is to shut down at the end of May the production facilities at its European subsidiary, TDK Recording Media Europe, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

The shut down is planned to take place at the end of May 2006. This decision completes TDK's withdrawal from the manufacturing of recordable CD & DVD products, coupled with the reorganization of plants in Chikumagawa area (Nagano, Japan) implemented at the end of last year.

The restructuring was prompted by dramatic changes over the past years in the European recording media market environment, including a rapid decline of sales prices and the increasing cost of natural resources.

The new organisation will encompass pan-European sales and marketing divisions dedicated to the professional and consumer markets; a central customer support centre based in Ratingen, Germany; and a central warehouse and logistics service located in Luxembourg.

TDK set up its first European sales office in Germany in 1973. The following decade saw the development of a pan-European sales and distribution infrastructure. Parallel to that, the brand rapidly gained reputation and market share through its advanced audio and video recording technology. In 1990, the company established its European headquarters in Luxembourg, together with manufacturing facilities for audio and video cassettes for the European markets.

In response to the 1990’s shift from analogue to digital recording, CD-R production lines were added in 1999. However, recordable CDs and, later, DVDs rapidly matured from leading edge, premium-priced recording media to commodity items.

This announcement, the company says, does not affect TDK's commitment to research and development and manufacturing of the most advanced recording media formats including Data Storage Tape, a core business, and Blu-ray Disc, which will utilise the pilot production lines established at Chikumagawa Tecno Plan in Japan.

Story filed 05.03.06