Sampo Corp (
The Chinese television manufacturer TCL announced Monday a joint venture with rival Thomson to create the world's largest producer of TV sets. The venture company will be called TCL-Thomson Electronics.
"We don't have details about TCL-Thomson Electronics' product line so far ... but we believe we have a good chance to win more [LCD and PDP-TV] orders from TCL as a result of the deal," Sampo deputy spokesman Kanty Wu (
Sampo has collaborated with TCL for almost a decade, Wu said. The Taiwanese company produces refrigerators for TCL on a contract basis and it has also set up a joint venture with TCL, Rechi Precision Co (
Sampo also manufactures PDP-TVs for Thomson on a contract basis, industry analysts said. Wu declined to confirm the company's partnership with the French consumer electronics company that now owns the RCA brand.
Sampo, which expects to ship 400,000 TVs next year, said it will stick to the strategy of selling brand-name products in Taiwan, while providing outsourcing services for European or US brand-name home-appliance vendors, Wu said.
The new TCL-Thomson venture is likely to bring more orders to Sampo, an analyst said.
The contribution from the original equipment manufacturing (OEM) and original design manufacturing (ODM) side is expected to increase to about 50 percent within the next few years due to the deal, said Chen Yen-liang (
During the first nine months, OEM and ODM businesses accounted for 30 to 40 percent of Sampo's consolidated revenues of NT$17.13 billion.
Another analyst, however, said the creation of the new venture is likely to negatively affect local home-appliance makers while selling their products abroad.
"It's a challenge for local home-appliance makers to sell their products overseas with or without the TCL-Thomson joint venture," said Helen Chen (
"Taiwanese companies can only make a profit by selling brand-name products to local consumers on effective cost control. Without that advantage, they are unable to compete with their international rivals in Europe and North America," she added.
Rival Teco Group (東元) said the TCL-Thomson deal could create an additional hurdle for local companies wanting to sell their branded TV sets to European consumers as the deal will enhance Thomson's edge due to lower production costs in China. But smaller rival Sanyo Electric Co (Taiwan) (台灣三洋電機), said it doesn't see the deal having a serious impact on local companies.
Sampo shares rose by N$0.3, or 1.91 percent, to close at NT$16.0, while Teco were unchanged at NT$12.05 on the TAIEX yesterday. The Hong Kong-listed TCL closed 1.7 percent lower to finish at HK$2.875 (US$0.369).
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS