Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp is cautious about the upcoming holiday season as jittery shoppers could become more careful about spending during the financial crisis, a company executive said in Taipei yesterday.
Sony, however, retained its goal of delivering 17 million liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV sets this fiscal year, which began on April 1. That would represent around 60 percent growth from last year’s 10.6 million units.
“Growing uncertainty [about the financial crisis] makes people jittery. We will be cautious about market demand [in the traditionally busy season],” Yoshinari Sengoku, a general manager at Sony’s flat TV business division, told a press briefing on the sidelines of the launch of a new range of TVs.
PHOTO: CHEN MEI-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Sengoku believed LCD TV sales around the globe would continue to grow this year and next year.
“I am optimistic about LCD TV sales in the medium and long term,” Sengoku said. “I am confident that Sony will hit its shipment target for 2008.”
DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas-based researcher, also kept its forecast of 105 million LCD TV sales for this year unchanged. Next year, LCD TV sales may grow by 25 percent to 131 million sets, DisplaySearch data showed.
“There will be seasonal demand this year. We expect people will still buy TVs as first-tier brands are expected to cut prices sharply during the upcoming season,” David Hsieh (謝勤益), a vice president at DisplaySearch, said via telephone.
The price of a high-definition 40-inch LCD TV may fall US$200, or at least 20 percent, to between US$699 and US$799 per unit, from more than US$1,000 per unit now, Hsieh said.
“Growth is likely to be weaker than before, as demand in the US and Europe may weaken because of the financial crisis,” Hsieh said.
Commenting on Sony’s partnership with Taiwanese flat panel suppliers, Sengoku said it was Sony’s goal to maintain close partnerships with panel suppliers in the long term.
“AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) are good partners of Sony,” Sengoku said.
Next year, Sony plans to add a new joint venture with Sharp Co to its panel suppliers. Currently, the Japanese TV giant buys LCD panels mostly from S-LCD, a flat-panel venture with South Korean Samsung Electronics Co.
“That, to some extent, may have some [negative] impact on local panel makers next year,” Hsieh said.
Taiwanese panel makers supply between 30 percent and 40 percent of the LCD screens Sony uses for its slim-screen TVs, DisplaySearch figures showed.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last