ViewSonic International Corp, a US-based computer monitor maker, views flat-screen televisions as a growth business and unveiled its first batch of flat-screen TVs in Taipei yesterday.
ViewSonic's move made it the latest company, after personal computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co said last month it would join rivals Dell Inc and Gateway Inc, in the flat-panel television market.
ViewSonic already grabbed the No.1 and No.3 position in Taiwan's computer display and projector markets. But "we hope the new flat-panel business will contribute 30 percent of the company's total sales generated in Taiwan's market next year," said Middle Lin (
To achieve that goal, ViewSonic will have to sell about 1,000 to 1,500 units of flat-screen TVs a month including liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma display panel (PDP) TVs, he added.
The annual sales will help ViewSonic grab about 12 to 15 percent of the local market share and become one of the largest flat-panel TV brands -- based on the assumption that some 80,000 flat-panel TVs will be sold next year, Lin said.
"We believe the demand for flat-screen TVs will move into a high-growth stage in the second half of next year, though the sales remain flat this year as consumers are trying to sort out their needs," said Lin.
In terms of revenue, the 30-percent sales target will represent a US$108 million contribution from Taiwan, which will make up 30 percent of the company's total Asia-Pacific region revenue of US$370 million, according to Alan Chang (
ViewSonic expected the Asia-Pacific region's revenue to leap by about 44 percent to US$360 million this year from US$250 million this year in anticipation of consumers' aggressive purchases of flat-screen TVs, Chang said.
A market researcher said the market for LCDs, which are brighter than flat-panel plasma screens and thinner than cathode-ray tubes, will increase to US$92.5 billion by 2007 from US$68.4 billion this year, according to a DisplaySearch report released on Tuesday.
This emerging business has prompted major monitor makers to engage in flat-panel display manufacuturing, an analyst said.
"You can see ViewSonic's local rivals, such as BenQ Corp (明基電通) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), have already rolled out LCD-TVs," said Charles Chou (周士雄), an analyst with the Market Intelligence Center.
But to sustain momentum, the government needs to speed up the development of digital broadcast television services, and the retail prices of flat-screen TVs must go lower, Chou said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to