Sony has announced that they have inked a deal with Indiana Secretary of Commerce Nate Feltman to expand the Terre Haute facility. The $133M expansion project will add 85 jobs at the facility which already cranks out 425,000 Blu-ray discs per day (in addition to CDs, DVDs, and UMDs). Mastering, replication, packaging, and distribution areas of the facility will all be expanded to meet ever-increasing demand.

Dieter Daum, Executive Chairman of Sony DADC Global, commented, "The rapid adoption of the new Blu-ray Disc format by consumers allows us to quickly expand Blu-ray Disc capacity in the United States. Based on the past experience with manufacturing in Terre Haute, the selection of this facility for the expansion was logical."

By October, Sony expects that their three Blu-ray manufacturing facilities (United States, Austria, and Japan) will more than double Blu-ray disc output from 21 to 47 million discs per month.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1396

Good news. An abundance of disks in the supply chain will inevitably lead to lower consumer costs. Incentives will have to be given to make sure consumers actually by those additional 26 million monthly units (world wide).

You mean they can't just press a button and increase supply instantly? For shame!

Wait, I'm not sure I understand. Why are they doing this if there are no shortages? Wouldn't producing above demand waste money?

Well, savior that is a good point but I think that these discs will be made for shipment outside of these areas as well. Also, Sony and panasonic have made a few improvements in the design of the BD players resulting in a cheaper product which should be integrated into players as of early 2009 according to the news that i've seen, therefore a cheaper price for players will be available, and therefore a higher demand. Sony is simply adding capacity for a expected increase in future demand of Blu ray movies.

They said they are increasing supply to "meet ever increasing demand."  Meaning they expect there to be a shortage if they don't ramp up production soon.  You try to be proactive and predict demand...not reactive and wait until you can't supply enough---that can lose you millions.

Because waiting your product is out of stock for 6 months to consider increasing production is not the best way to run a business ( Take that Nintendo !).