LG Electronics Inc, the world’s third-largest maker of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) televisions, aims to overtake Sony Corp as the second-biggest this year, driven by stronger-than-expected demand.
The company is maintaining its LCD TV-shipment target of 18 million units for this year, which will be achievable, Simon Kang, head of the company’s home-entertainment division, told reporters in Seoul yesterday.
Global revenue from LCD TVs will drop 6 percent this year to US$76 billion, researcher DisplaySearch said last week, higher than its previous estimate of US$66 billion. Worldwide LCD TV shipments will rise 21 percent to 127 million units, compared with an earlier prediction of 120 million, because of higher demand from China and as more consumers replace bulkier glass-tube sets, according to the Austin, Texas-based research firm.
The South Korean company yesterday introduced its latest LCD TVs using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as backlights instead of conventional fluorescent lights.
Global shipments of LCD TV panels with LED backlights will increase to 3.3 million units this year compared with 438,000 last year, according to researcher iSuppli Corp this month.
LED backlights, illuminated by glowing chips and used in products such as Apple Inc’s laptop computers, are brighter and consume less power than conventional fluorescent tubes.
LG expects global shipments of LCD TVs with LED backlights to rise almost 10-fold to 30 million units next year from 3.1 million this year. The firm aims to sell 400,000 sets this year and 3 million to 4 million units next year.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
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