This is a translation of some fragments of an interesting article that appeared in our local paper (all copyrights are acknowledged by me - Jac Goudsmit)
EINDHOVEN - Philips has taken digital compact cassette (DCC) out of production. DCC will only be made for professional applications. For the Japanese market, Philips are releasing a MiniDisc player in the near future.
A spokeswoman for the company acknowledged this yesterday. "We are still delivering the product, but we aren't making it in large quantities anymore". Last month, Matsushita, known from the Panasonic and Technics brands, announced that they would stop with DCC. Philips announced earlier that they would release a couple of new models around this time.
At the introduction, four years ago, Philips had high expectations about its own invention. DCC was going to be the successor of the ever successful cassette. Every year, around 2,500,000,000 tapes and 200 million players are sold.
DCC had to compete against Sony's MiniDisc system right from the start. In Europe, that system didn't become a success, but in the Far East, MiniDisc is very popular. Philips is going to produce it for the Japanese market as well. The hardware will be sold under the Marantz name.
In February this year, Jan Timmer who was President of Philips at the time, admitted that sales of DCC were below expectations. According to him, it had become a "niche product for audiophiles". Timmer made clear that it would not be kept in production at any price: "We have to make the balance sometime: how much did it cost, what does it bring in and what are we doing with it now".