P.M. BRIEFING : Sony Doubles CD Player Output

Sony Corp. has doubled production of its portable CD players for the second time in two months to meet strong demand in Japan, a company spokesman said today.

Sony introduced the Discman, which uses three-inch compact discs, on July 1, and had sold at least 30,000 by the end of September, he said.

Production has been boosted to 20,000 players a month, he said. Each disc can hold the equivalent of 100,000 pages of text, which can be called up on the 19-ounce player’s liquid crystal display screen.

The machines are becoming popular among students and business professionals, a Sony spokeswoman said.

Sony initially produced 5,000 a month but doubled this to 10,000 in August. It plans to export the players, but no details have been announced.