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Wintek, Sharp sign LCD patent deal

Wintek Corp (勝華) has signed a patent agreement with Japanese rival Sharp Corp to use critical technologies in making liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels, the Taichung-based manufacturer said yesterday.

"The agreement will help us build a bigger presence in the thin-film-transistor (TFT)-LCD market more quickly and efficiently, because Sharp, as a leader in this field, owns lots of related patents," company spokesman James Chen (陳政慧) said by telephone.

Wintek, the world's biggest mobile phone display maker by shipments, inked the agreement with Sharp on Thursday, but the deal will have retroactive effect from Jan. 1 this year, a company statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.

"This cross-licensing agreement not only boosts our competitiveness in the TFT industry by helping to complete our patent portfolio, it also opens up opportunities for business collaboration between our two companies," Wintek vice president C.C. Hsu (許振昌) said in a press release.

Wintek, which mostly makes mobile phone screens using less advanced super-twisted nematic technology, has been aggressively expanding to TFT-LCD panels in recent years to meet rising replacement demand for the higher-resolution and thinner flat panels.

TFT-LCD panels accounted for one-third of the company's revenues of NT$9.8 billion (US$309.6 million) in the fourth quarter, a ratio that is expected to increase to at least 50 percent this year after Wintek bought a second factory from local company HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) last year to expand capacity, Chen said.

"TFT-LCD and touch panels will be two major drivers for Wintek this year," Chen said.

Wintek started supplying a customer with touch panels in the second half of last year and is designing products for several customers now, Chen said.

In the third quarter of last year, Wintek overtook Samsung SDI as the world's top handset display maker by shipping 47.4 million handset screens and capturing a 14.2-percent market share, figures from researcher DisplaySearch showed. Sharp was ranked No. 3.

Wintek is supplying screens to major mobile phone brands including Nokia Oyj, Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.

It also supplies touch panels to Apple Inc for its latest digital music player, the iPod Touch, SinoPac Securities Corp (永豐金證券) said in a report released on Wednesday.

The investment house suggest that investors buy the stock with a 12-month projected price of NT$36 owing to a milder-than-expected slowdown in the first quarter.

The stock price of Wintek yesterday jumped 3.39 percent to NT$29, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX index, which inched up 0.14 percent.
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