CMAI, a petrochemical consulting firm, published the results of a research about phenol capacity in the Next 5 Years. Phenols are a necessary component in the production of polycarbonate, an essential part of optical media like CD and DVD.
According an excerpt published by Yahoo:
Optical media's growth has been fueled by the DVD. Movies and television series being packaged has provided healthy sales and growth in this end-use market. However, CMAI predicts that as MP3 players are shrinking in size and growing in memory storage, this trend may struggle to continue. With a few more years of continued growth for optical media, broad band and portable hard drives will soon render CDs and DVDs as "old" technology in developed markets. Forecast overall demand growth for polycarbonate during the next five years will be better than that of 2005, but nowhere near the levels seen prior to 2000.
Again, I must admit that this is a good point: flash memory can be a good, and maybe also more durable and reliable, alternative to optical media. In some cases flash memory are already taking the place of CDs, like for example in car audio devices.
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