Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Corp aims to recoup its top position in Taiwan's rapidly-growing television market this year by launching more and bigger-sized liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs, a company official said yesterday.
The Japanese TV brand regained the leading position in the mainstream 32-inch size segment in Taiwan in December last year, with the help of its lower-priced "Bravia" sub-brand last year.
"The Bravia series is very successful. We have been trying to catch up with consumer demand since we launched the brand," said Hiroyuki Oda, president of Sony's consumer electronics division in Taiwan.
"We hope the growth momentum will carry into this year," Oda said. "We hope to take the number one position this year," he said.
Oda also said Sony aims for double-digit growth in sales for his division this year from last year.
However, he declined to give detailed numbers.
Sony lost its top position in the nation's LCD TV market to Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, which sell consumer electronics products under the Panasonic brand, in 2004 and 2003.
But the company was on target last quarter globally, nabbing around a 15 percent share of the market.
Sony overtook Sharp Corp to become the world's biggest LCD TV brand due to the successful launch of the Bravia series and optimized panel capacity through S-LCD Corp, its TFT-LCD joint venture with Samsung, according to a DisplaySearch report released yesterday
Sony's progress was also helped by strong demand for large-sized LCD TVs, fueled by an almost 50 percent drop in prices year-on-year, the market researcher said.
In the third quarter of last year, Sony was ranked No.4 with a market share of less than 9 percent, it added.
DisplaySearch expects sales of LCD TVs to more then double to 42 million units around the globe this year, from 19 million last year.
"We believe the growth will also be rapid in Taiwan," Oda said.
Oda said LCD TV sales are expected to reach as high as 500,000 units this year, from around 300,000 units last year, with LCD TV sales accounting for 50 percent of total TV sales.
"The trend is clear that LCD TVs are taking over from traditional CRT [cathode-ray-tube] TVs," Oda said.
He said more consumers will now consider buying the slim-screen TVs as prices are stabilizing after plunging in the second half of last year.
Based on the optimistic outlook, Sony plans to introduce more models with large-sized screens in the Taiwanese market, Oda said.
He declined to comment on whether Sony would increase its purchases of LCD panels from local manufacturers -- including AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) -- this year amid supply constraints at S-LCD.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS