The Japanese company has announced they will be stepping up their activities in the blue laser production market currently dominated by Sony. Although Sony dominates the market they have not been able to satisfy the demand for next generation players causing prices to go up, especially for the PlayStation 3. During the month of November, Sharp produced 150,000 units, but plans to bring up the production to 500,000 for this month and even more in the future.
Takenami declined to comment on Sharp's sales target, but the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily said the Osaka-based company aims for annual blue laser diode sales of about 15 billion yen ($127.2 million) at the initial stage.
That is a large quantity of diodes, and that kind of production can have a significant effect in the next-gen optical market in general since blue laser diodes are the main component for Blu-Ray players. Hopefully this will help on availability and drive down prices of consoles and players in the not so distant future.