Rumor: Samsung is exiting the optical drive market

Samsung is exiting the optical drive market, Korean media claim. Samsung manufactures disc readers and burners as part of Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology, in which it has a 49 percent share. Samsung would sell that share.

The partnership Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corporation was founded in 2004, but Samsung would like to get out of it after ten years and sell its share, the Korean edition of Cnet claims. The reason would be that the sale of odds has been declining for years. Not only has the sales of PCs fallen into free fall, but fewer and fewer laptops are still using optical drives.

TSST has been loss making for years. It is not known whether and when Samsung will officially announce its withdrawal from the joint venture. The sale of its 49 percent stake would be part of its move to target newer storage media such as the SSD market. Samsung previously sold its HDD business to Seagate as part of this strategy.