Global demand for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) televisions may double next year from between 20 million and 22 million units this year, said an executive at AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's third-largest maker of flat panels.
"Holiday sales in the US indicate our projection last month may have been too conservative," executive vice president Hsiung Hui (熊暉) said in an interview from Hsinchu.
AU Optronics said at its Oct. 26 investor conference that global demand for LCD TVs will likely surge 75 percent next year to 35 million units from 20 million units this year.
The revised growth forecast for LCD TVs compares with 25 percent growth Hsiung is predicting for desktop and notebook computers next year.
Retail sales in the world's largest economy jumped 22 percent to US$27.8 billion over the Thanksgiving weekend from a year earlier, as shoppers bought electronics, clothing and books, a Nov. 27 report by the National Retail Federation showed. Sales of electronics had the largest jump, the industry group said.
AU Optronics is on schedule to move equipment into its newest 7.5-generation plant in the second quarter next year, and plans to start mass production in the fourth quarter of next year, Hsiung said.
The new plant, which will make LCD TVs measuring at least 40 inches diagonally, will have initial production capacity of 30,000 sheets of glass substrates a month. The firm plans to double this to 60,000 sheets in 2007 to help achieve its goal of becoming one of the world's three largest LCD TV panel makers within two years, Hsiung said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained