Taiwan-based Lite-On IT, the world’s third-largest optical media storage drive manufacturer next only to South Korea’s Samsung and LG Philips, announced that it has started trial production of 24x CD-RW drives and expects to begin formal shipments in August. Initially, Lite-On IT plans to manufacture 60,000 drives per month, and then raise output to 250,000 units per month by year-end.

Lite-On IT said that it has sent samples of its 24x CD-RW drives to media for performance testing. At the earliest, consumers will be able to purchase the products at the end of August.

Although it plans to produce only 60,000 24x CD-RW drives in August, Lite-On IT believes that orders will gradually increase after the product line enters full-scale volume production, especially as the top five optical storage drive companies in the world are all the company’s clients. Lite-On IT predicted that the company will be able to make 200,000 24x CD-RW drives every month after September and the capacity will be enhanced to 250,000 units before year-end.

At present, Lite-On IT’s main production base is located in China. Its Taiwan plant has been mostly used as research and trial production center. Therefore, the latest 24x CD-RW drives will all be manufactured in the company’s Dongguan, Guangdong Province factory. Currently, the monthly production capacity of CD-RW drives in its Dongguan plant has reached 600,000 units. With the opening of its Guangzhou, Guangdong Province plant in 2002, Lite-On IT expects its overall capacity to top 800,000 drives per month.

Lite-On IT’s new 24x CD-RW drives write CD-R media at 24x speed, CD-RW media at 10x speed and read CD-ROMs at 40x speed. The product line also features smart-burn and real-time burning technology.