BenQ keeps mobile phone line, but set to emphasize LCD

Taiwanese electronics firm BenQ Corp (明基) will continue its cellphone production this year but its focus will be on liquid-crystal-display (LCD) products, a newspaper said yesterday.

The Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) quoted BenQ Manager Hank Horng (洪漢青) as saying that this year BenQ would focus on LCD TV and LCD monitors to meet the soaring demand for LCD products.

"Despite increased supply, there is still a 20 percent shortage. We hope to ship all our products before the start of the Lunar New Year holidays," the paper quoted Horng as saying.

Horng said BenQ will continue its core mobile-phone business and will launch new products.

"Last year we produced 270,000 handsets. [This year], we plan to produce 300,000 handsets, mainly with youthful and metallic casings. We will launch our lightest 3G handsets and BenQ-Siemens E81 handset at the end of January and will launch a GPS handset and a 3.5G handset during the [school] summer vacation," he said.

BenQ reported NT$3 billion (US$90 million) in revenues last year and aims to make NT$5 billion this year.

BenQ manufactured 500,000 LCD TVs and 190,000 LCD monitors last year and hopes to raise LCD TV and LCD monitor output to 800,000 and 250,000 units respectively this year.