Initial Survey Results Present Mixed Message for Optoelectronics Companies

William Reinsch, the undersecretary for export administration for the US Department of Commerce, released preliminary results of a survey of the optoelectronics market that pointed to reasons for both concern and optimism.
During an executive forum of the Optoelectronic Industry Development Association in September, Reinsch said the telecommunications and installation equipment market remains strong. Other areas of growth include high-capacity media and optical storage technology such as CD-ROMs and DVDs. Bar-code readers and image scanners also are posting increased sales. In addition, most of the 28 companies that returned surveys expected their overall competitive prospects to improve greatly or at least somewhat in the next five years. This group reported an average market share of 28 percent.
On the downside, the average utilization rate for the 28 companies responding was only 54 percent. The average capacity utilization for manufacturing industries as a whole is 83 percent.