A depressed Seiko Epson Corp says it will stop selling 3.5 floppy disk drives from next March, after severe competition eroded profit margins despite the growing demand; it will put all its efforts into printers. It made 1 million drives a month in China until late 1995, rivaling Teac Corp and Mitsumi Electric Co, but it has already suspended output of 3.5 floppy drives, and will end sales by March. It was licensed to manufacture Iomega Corp’s Zip drive last year and consigned manufacture of up to 400,000 month to a Philippine firm since summer 1995. But it sees little profit in Zip now Matsushita Communication Industrial Co is making Compaq Computer Corp’s 120Mb drive.
