Thanks to falling polycarbonate prices, and major cost efficiency exercises which were taken up internally, recovery started at Moser Baer early last year. And by the second quarter of FY 2005-06, the company was back in the black after the turbulent previous quarters.

The cost efficiency exercise was aimed at improving the equipment productivity. The equipment utilization capacity was improved with more disks produced per equipment. During the year the company added one new OEM, making it a supplier for the 12 leading brands who account for almost the entire market worldwide.

In the fiscal 2005-06, Moser Baer also made its debut into the photo voltaic business by manufacturing solar cells and modules, targeting 80 MW capacity by 2007.  It also signed a 5-year MoU with IIT Delhi, for film sputtering technology that can enhance the capacity of optical data storage devices.

Deepak Puri, CMD

Ratul Puri, executive director Yogesh Mathur, Group CFO Girish Baluja, COO Rakesh Govil, EVP, Corporate Strategy and Business Development VC Agerwal, EVP, Manufacturing Bhaskar Sharma, EVP Domestic Sales and Marketing Vivek Chaturvedi, VP, International Marketing

Moser Baer's strategy of focusing on CDR paid off as price started normalizing-and the company is now the largest CDR manufacturer globally. The high margin DVD business was the key growth driver and the company has increased capacities from 600 mn at the beginning of fiscal to nearly 1 bn toward the end. DVD accounted for 20% of the revenues in the fiscal beginning, and grew close to 50% by fiscal end.

 While 2005-06 was about enabling a shift from CD to DVD, and growing the latter, next fiscal will be focused around new generation formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, with 25/50 GB capacity. This is likely to open up new market opportunities.

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