The government's production-line diversification policy for the thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display (TFT-LCD) industry is moving in the right direction amid cut-throat international competition and will make operations more profitable, Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) said yesterday.
Saying that Taiwan could not afford to go down the road of "dominating the world market but making no money," Ho said that diversifying product variety and marketing would not only help the industry survive global competition but also sharpen its competitiveness.
Ho made the remarks while addressing the 2005 Flat Panel Display Prototype Technology Awards sponsored by the Industrial Technology and Research Institute.
Companies receiving awards included Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), Toppoly Optronics Corp (統寶光電), AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) and Ritdisplay Corp (錸寶) for outstanding business operations or technological development.
Products and technologies cited included organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS), wide-angle view and low color-shift technology, active-matrix full-color OLED displays and low temperature polysilicon technology.
Takeyasu Murayama, head consultant to the Japanese-invested Asahi Glass Fine Techno Taiwan, which was cited as a role model in cross-border joint ventures, said that Taiwan's development of LCD technology and production was amazing.
According to Murayama, the industry's consumption of LCD glass panels exceeded that of South Korea last year to become the world's largest in the field, and the trend is expected to grow further this year.
The following two or three years will be crucial to find out whether Taiwan will remain the world's No.1 LCD country in the face of aggressive competition from South Korea, Murayama added.
According to market researcher DisplaySearch, Taiwanese companies shipped more big LCDs in March and April than South Korean producers, making it the world's biggest LCD producer in terms of quantity. South Korea beat Taiwan in the value of total displays sold, because Korean producers made more high-end products, the researcher said.
The output of TFT-LCDs and related products totaled NT$715 billion (US$23.1 billion) last year and the figure is expected to exceed the NT$1.37 trillion mark next year, according to tallies compiled by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Ho estimated that the production of TFT-LCDs and related products will exceed NT$1 trillion this year with research and development as well as manufacturing operations in these companies continuing to flourish.
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