Sampo expects TV boom

Taiwanese television maker Sampo Corp (聲寶) yesterday said the local slim-screen TV market would grow 20 percent next year, boosted by new orders for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs from overseas customers such as Japan's Sharp Corp.

Sampo is well known for its plasma-display-panel (PDP) TVs, but the company said it is trying to build a greater presence in the LCD TV market to cope with shrinking demand for PDP TVs.

"The shipment growth is mainly driven by LCD TV demand," Sampo president Afuna Chen (陳瑞勳) said on the sidelines of a press conference unveiling the company's new products, including a 58-inch PDP TV and a 32-inch LCD TV using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as its back light source.

LCD TV sales are expected to expand 54 percent annually to 66 million units next year, while PDP TVs would grow 30 percent to 13 million units, market researcher DisplaySearch said.

"We recently started shipping LCD TVs for Sharp and we will have a new customer next year, a major US channel brand," Chen said.

He declined to comment on whether Best Buy Co, a leading US consumer electronics retailer, would be a potential customer for Sampo.

Shipment of flat-panel TVs including PDP and LCD TVs would expand to 300,000 sets from 250,000 sets estimated for this year, Chen said.

Sampo is supplying 32-inch and 37-inch LCD TVs under the brand AQUOS for Sharp to meet local demand, Chen said. He said the volume would initially be small, but would expand gradually to exceed 10,000 units next year.

"Sharp is unable to match the voracious demand for its TVs around the world," Chen said. "We hope to create a win-win situation from this cooperation."

Sharp currently holds a 6 percent stake in Sampo, making it the biggest shareholder of the Taiwanese TV manufacturer.

Sampo also manufactures own-brand slim-screen TVs, refrigerators and other home appliances. The company posted a NT$1.1 billion net loss during the first nine months of this year because of losses from its computer monitor manufacturing arm Sampo Technology Corp (新寶科). A conservative business strategy and stricter cost savings narrowed the loss down from NT$2 billion in the same period last year.

Sampo Technology has been asked to stop trading on the nation's over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market starting Dec. 25 after the company's net value fell into the red.

Sampo shares dropped 0.24 percent to NT$8.1 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, compared with a 0.4 percent gain on the main bourse.