Samsung Electronics Co said it intends to sell 2 million light-emitting-diode (LED) TVs this year, bringing the ultra-slim and power-efficient TVs to a 10 percent share of the company’s overall liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV shipments for this year, a company executive said yesterday.
The figure would be two times higher than the world’s 3 percent average this year, according to the latest forecast by market researcher DisplaySearch released yesterday.
GROWING TREND
The research house said leading LCD TV brands including Samsung, Philips, Sharp and Sony were planning to increase use of LED backlights in the second half of this year as LED backlight’s cost premium over cold-cathode-fluorescent-lamp (CCFL) backlights narrows.
“Our LED TVs have received wide population in the US and Europe. We have sold 400,000 units since they made their debut,” Samsung Electronics Taiwan Co president Smile Kim said yesterday.
The fast uptake has caused supply constraints for some components such as LED chips, Kim said, adding that the company was communicating with Taiwanese companies to increase supply.
PROJECTIONS
For this year, Samsung, the world’s biggest TV maker, said it expects to sell 2 million LED TVs with screen size ranging from 32 inches to 55 inches, Kim said.
In other words, shipments of LED TVs would account for 10 percent of Samsung’s total LCD TV global shipments this year, he said.
That may be an ambitious target, as DisplaySearch forecast that LED TV shipments could grow to 3.6 million units this year.
Next year, global LED TV shipments may increase to 15 million units, making up 10 percent of the global LCD TV shipments, the researcher said.
Separately, Samsung said it aims to expand its local market share to 10 percent by revenues after its new LED TV series hit the Taiwanese market this month, compared to 2 percent in the first three months of the year.
Samsung’s LED TVs will be available at prices ranging from NT$65,900 to NT$179,900 per unit, depending on the screen size and specifications, the company said.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six