CD-ROM & Multimedia titles now exceed 11,000 worldwide

June 20, 1995 -- TFPL Publishing estimate that there are currently in
excess of 11,000 CD-ROM & multimedia CD titles commercially available
worldwide. These forecasts, which disclose an annual titles growth rate in
excess of 50%, are based on the latest edition of The CD-ROM Directory.

Industry expert Julie Schwerin, author of the Optical Publishing Industry
Assessment Report (distributed by TFPL Publishing) observes, Industry
output has reached a level sufficient to propel CD-ROM & Multimedia into
the mainstream of desktop computing and position it for similar success in
domestic set-top systems."

With CD-ROM titles now covering virtually every subject area imaginable,
the current boom in commercially available CD-ROM titles is to a
significant extent attributable to the emergence of the consumer market,
where an initial curiosity towards CD-ROM technology has been replaced by
virtual acceptance, as indicated by the nearly 35 million CD-ROM readers
now installed worldwide.

Currently multimedia CDs account for 27% of all titles available,
reflecting the dominance of business, scientific and technical titles.
However, this split is changing fast with the heaviest users of
multimedia, namely games, general reference, education, edutainment and
films accounting for a rapidly increasing proportion.

According to CD-ROM Directory editor Gesche Buecker, "All major publishers
now have a strategy for exploiting electronic publishing opportunities,
and, for the moment, CD-ROM is their format of choice, as it provides a
practical and cost-effective platform which is available now. What had
delayed market expansion to date is a low installed base of CD-ROM and
multimedia hardware, the high price of titles and drives, undeveloped
distribution channels, and a lack of knowledge about what titles are in
fact available."

Sales data collected for The OPIA Report (Optical Publishing Industry
Assessment), published by InfoTech shows that the worldwide installed base
of CD-ROM readers grew to 26.9 million units, up 137% from 1993. According
to Julie Schwerin, the USA accounted for the largest overall increase
followed by the UK, Germany and Japan, but with the highest adoption rates
found in the developing countries.

Windows is the platform experiencing the most dramatic growth with a share
which has risen to nearly 20%. Of these titles, well over half are also
available as DOS applications and over 38% as Apple Macintosh
applications. Apple Mac titles continue to show steady growth. It is,
however, interesting to note that of just over 1,700 Mac titles, nearly
70% of them are also available for the PC, in either MS-DOS and/or Windows
formats. The fact that around 15% of all titles currently available are
Mac/PC cross-platform discs neatly illustrates the trend towards platform
convergence.

With the emergence of the highly touted Video CD standard, which enables
full screen, full motion video playback, and on a wide range of otherwise
non-compatible platforms, we should expect continued growth with such
products as feature films and music videos traditionally distributed on
video cassette move to the silver disc.

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The CD-ROM Directory is the definitive guide to CD-ROM & multimedia titles
published worldwide, plus all companies involved in the business. A
completely new edition of the directory is published every six months (Dec
& June). The latest edition is the 14th and subscribers to the CD-ROM
VERSION automatically receive two editions as part of their annual
subscription ($149.00 for two editions), with a single edition also
available ($99.00). A BOOK VERSION of the directory is published annually
($139.00 for a single copy).

Further charts will appear in TFPL's CD-ROM Facts & Figures 1995, a
detailed analysis of the international CD-ROM & multimedia CD industry,
which features a full commentary by industry expert Rockley Miller (author
of the Multimedia Monitor newsletter).

The OPIA Report published by InfoTech provides the hard data essential in
compiling accurate business plans and marketing strategies. As a
quantitative market research report, it provides unsurpassed analysis of
the optical publishing industry covering the period of 1986-1999,
including over 150 pages of detailed graphs and analysis text. Data (in
both volume & value) is reported in terms of global, regional and national
statistics including installed base of drives, units sold, disc masters,
commercial versus in-house market, by country, platform.

These publications are available from TFPL who also provide consultancy,
marketing 8 research services to the CD-ROM industry and wider information
sector in North America and Europe.
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TFPL Inc
1301 Twentieth Street NW (#702)
Washington, DC 20036
202-296-6009,  fax 202-296-6343
CIS: 74044,3166

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