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Moser Baer

Type	Private
Founded	1983 New Delhi, India
Headquarters	New Delhi, India
Key people	Deepak Puri, Founder & Managing Director Ratul Puri, Executive Director
Industry	Optical Storage Media
Products	CD-RW, DVD-RW, BD-R
Revenue	▲ Rs. 6780 crore
Net income	▲ Rs. 939.3 crore
Website	www.moserbaer.in
as on 4 November 2007

Moser Baer is the world's 2nd largest optical storage media manufacturer and supplies to the world's top dozen brands. They now make CD-R's for Memorex (2004, 2007-2008), TDK (2004, 2006) and Verbatim (2006-). They used to make CD-R's for Imation (2004-2006) and Staples (2003-2006). The company was founded in New Delhi in 1983. 75% of its revenue comes from exports. Although most of that is from OEM products.^[1] Their product range includes floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs.

Incorporated in 1983, Moser Baer has a presence in over 82 countries, serviced through six marketing offices in India, the US and Europe, and enjoys strong tie-ups with all major global technology brands.

Its 4 manufacturing facilities are located in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.^[1] The company was among the first to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary - Moser Baer Photo Voltaic Limited — in 2005, to focus on the high-growth solar energy segment in India. It also plans to build an Rs 330 crore silicon PV manufacturing facility (near Delhi) and has tied up with Applied Materials Inc for technology transfer.

Moser Baer acquired 81 per cent stake in Dutch Company — O M & T B.V, the research and development unit of Phillips in the last quarter of 2006-07.

History

The company was founded in New Delhi in 1983 by Mr. Deepak Puri. It started as a Time Recorder unit in technical collaboration with Maruze Corporation, Japan and Moser Baer Sumiswald, Switzerland. Moser Baer initially manufactured 5.25" Floppy Diskettes, graduating to 3.5" Micro Floppy Diskettes (MFD) in 1993. Today, Moser Baer is the world's fifth-largest manufacturer of MFDs. In 1999, Moser Baer set up a 150-million unit capacity plant to manufacture Recordable Compact Disks (CD-Rs) and Recordable Digital Versatile Disks (DVD-Rs). The company is today the only large Indian manufacturer of magnetic and optical media data storage products, exporting approximately 90% of its production. Beginning early 2000, the company has diversified into several technologies and product lines. While this entails certain risks, it has been a successful attempt so far. The approach of the firm is succinctly illustrated by Mr. Puri's explanation below: “…when you arrive at a crossroad,you have to do a calculated risk to turn in the right direction." | title=Interview with Mr. Deepak Puri |accessdate=21 May 2007 |publisher=[1]}}</ref>

Timeline

• 1983-Year of Incorporation

• 1985-Production of 8.0"/5.25" disks commences

• 1987-Production of 3.5" disks commences

• 1998-Moser Baer India gets ISO 9002 certification

• 1999-Production of CD-Rs commences

• 2000-Production of CD-RWs commences

• 2002-Production of cake and jewel boxes begins

• 2003-Entry into DVD-R formats Commissioning of the world's single-largest optical media production facility in Greater Noida Largest-ever Indian manufacturing deal with Imation Corp, USA.Introduction of the 'moserbaer' brand in the Indian market

• 2004-Technology license agreement with Hewlett-Packard to manufacture optical media using 'Lightscribe' technology Private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC invests $149 million (about Rs 675 crore) in Moser Baer Agreement with Hewlett-Packard to manage the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of HP-branded DVD+Rs, DVD+RWs, CD-Rs and CD-RWs, storage media in India and the SAARC region Moser Baer named as contributing member of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

• 2005-ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001 certification for Moser Baer plants.

• 2007-Moser Baer and Philips entered into a definitive agreement under which Moser Baer acquired OM&T B.V., a specialised technology company for optical R&D, which currently was a 100 per cent subsidiary of Philips. Moser Baer then started production of Blue Ray Disk and most important next gen media Holographic Data Storage.

• 2009-Introduction of low cost MP3 players in Indian Market.

title= Moser Baer launches MP3 player|accessdate=18 March 2009|publisher=[2]}}</ref>

Moser Baer Home Videos

They have recently acquired license to manufacture and distribute VCDs and DVDs of Indian movies. They sell these CDs at Rs. 28/- and DVDs @ 34/- (both of them individually cost less than $1 at present exchange rates).^{[2 ]}

Act against piracy

The Moser Baer Home Videos is a business initiative. It is a move by the company to reduce piracy by offering DVDs and VCDs at affordable prices. This initiative does not force the common man to buy a pirated DVD or download the movie illegally. Moser Baer began selling DVDs and VCDs of old Hindi movies and then started adding latest Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu movies. Moser Baer Home Videos has been a different yet successful concept.

Thin-film photovoltaic module production

Moser Baer announced that its photovoltaic subsidiary is ready to start production of single junction thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) modules at its manufacturing plant in Greater Noida, India. This follows final acceptance test (FAT) certification of Moser Baer Photovoltaic's SunFab Thin Film Line supplied by Applied Materials.The 40-megawatt (MW) has the largest thin-film production capacity of any line in India ^[3].

DVD-PLAYERS

Moser Baer has also started manufacturing DVD players .

Corporate social responsibility

• Moser baer received the Phytosanitary Certificate of Competency from the Ministry of Forests & Environment for “eco-friendly wood heat treatment process (as per ISPM-15)” and “for phasing out the methyl bromide fumigation process”^[4]

• Certified by Sony as a Green Partner for product environment systems, scoring 95.3%. This is the highest score ever for any company audited by Sony.

Controversies

Moser Baer was charged with dumping in the European Commission. After the case was thoroughly investigated, The Committee of European Disk Manufacturers withdrew its complaint in July 2002.^[5]

Links

• MoserBaer Website
• MoserBaer Home Videos
• Moser Baer's founder Mr. Deepak Puri speaks on qualities required for success
• MoserBaer Consumer Products

References