Competition between Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Sony Corp in the 3.5 magneto-optical disk drive market is hotting up, with Matsushita raising its production levels at its Osaka plant to 10,000 units per month. Production to date has been around 6,000 to 7,000 a month. In Japan, demand has increased following sturdy sales of the Macintosh, especially from designers and desktop publishing users. Sony has two plants close to Tokyo which together raised their monthly production level to around the 10,000 level in July. Annual sales this year of 30,000 units are expected as prices fall from the current $1,000 mark as competition grows.
