New brand unveiled by Sampo Corp

Sampo Corp (聲寶), one of the nation's largest home-appliance makers, announced yesterday the launch of a new high-end product line in a bid to compete with first-tier international companies such as Japan-based Sony Corp.

By offering a new product line under the "Claire" brand name, the company hopes to create the kind of customer support that Sony has, said Sampo's chief executive officer Ho Heng-chun (何恆春) at a press conference.

"The continual severe price wars are eating away [home-appliance] companies' profits," Ho said. "In an effort to rise above our competition, we decided to create a new brand featuring top-of-the-line products."

The company said it wants to demarcate between higher-priced Claire products and mid-priced Sampo products, and thereby avoid price wars with rivals such as Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機), Kolin Co (歌林) and Tatung Co (大同).

But the company will keep marketing and distributing mid-priced products under the Sampo brand name, Ho said.

One market analyst said the strategy is a clever move.

"Sampo would be able to protect its profit margin by categorizing products as first-tier items and luring customers with more expensive tastes," said Helen Chen (陳佩君), a market analyst at Polaris Securities (寶來證券).

Another industry-watcher said luxury products may not gain local popularity.

"Most Taiwanese are price-sensitive, so the market's acceptance of premium Taiwanese products is still questionable," said Chen Yen-liang (陳彥良), a researcher at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Co (元大京華證券).

Sampo yesterday also introduced the first products to be released under the brand name Claire -- 20, 27 and 30-inch flat-screen liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets.

The 30-inch Claire LCD-TV is priced at NT$98,000, nearly 25 percent higher than the 30-inch Sampo LCD-TV and 40 percent higher than rival Teco's 30-inch LCD-TV.

Ho claims Claire LCD-TVs are very competitive, because "the quality is equal to that of international brands, while the price is at least NT$10,000 lower."

A 30-inch Sony LCD-TV retails at around NT$249,000, and the same size LG LCD-TV is priced at NT$149,000.

Sampo hopes to sell 6,000 Claire LCD-TVs by the end of the year, according to Ho.

The company is also planning to sell Claire LCD-TVs overseas.

"We have talked with several companies in the US and Europe," said Eric Chen (陳盛泉), vice chairman of Sampo. "Hewlett-Packard Co expressed a lot of interest in our LCD-TVs."

Sampo plans to start distributing Claire LCD-TVs in the US in the first quarter of next year, he said.

In the longer term, the company may face some obstacles when going abroad, Yuanta Core Pacific's Chen said.

"Sampo is makling flat-panel TVs on a contract basis for some Western companies," Chen said.

These companies may cut orders if Claire gains market share in the West, he added.

Between January and last month, Sampo had NT$1.52 billion in sales, a 48-percent increase over the same period last year.

The company also plans to gradually add air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines to the Claire line of products toward the end of the year.