A fire broke out at optical disc maker Ritek's plants in Hsinchu, Taiwan before the Lunar New Year holidays. Despite the company announcing that the fire would not impact its operations, industry sources have pointed out that the fire damaged some of Ritek's Blu-ray equipment as well as raw material stocks, causing the company to suffer from tight supply of Blu-ray discs.
In response, Ritek pointed out that all its facilities, equipment and products are insured; therefore the company will not see any significant impact over its operations.
The sources pointed out that related Blu-ray disc capacity will need at least until April to fully recover.
DVDs currently still account for over 50% of Taiwan optical disc makers' shipments; however, due to low profitability of DVDs, Ritek had been expanding its 25GB Blu-ray capacity in 2010 and is also planning to double or even triple its current 50GB Blu-ray disc capacity in 2011 in order to boost its profitability.