Market researcher DisplaySearch yesterday slashed almost 9 percent from its forecast for global shipment of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs next year, saying that demand had sagged because of the growing economic slowdown.
The cut was part of the researcher’s dramatic reductions in its forecasts for overall TV revenues for next year, with the biggest downward revision for LCD TVs. Overall, global TV revenues including flat-panel TVs and CRT TVs may decrease 18 percent year-on-year to US$88 billion next year.
LCD TV revenues would fall at a faster-than-expected annual pace of 16 percent to US$64 billion next year, from a 9 percent decline estimated previously, marking the first decline since the launch of the first LCD TV, the report said.
“2009 will be the most difficult year yet for the TV industry and supply chain,” DisplaySearch said in the report.
Shipments of LCD TV sets are expected to grow 17 percent annually to 120 million next year, rather than the 131.5 million units forecast in the third quarter, the Texas-based research house said.
DisplaySearch also slightly reduced its LCD TV set shipment estimate for this year to 102.2 million units.
Unit growth in developed regions such as Japan, North America and Western Europe will be just 2 percent year-on-year, largely because of the impact of the economic crisis, the researcher said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained