LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) yesterday said its board had approved a proposal to form a TV assembling joint venture with TPV Technology Ltd (冠捷) to expand its presence in Europe.
The strategic alliance will be part of AU Optronics’ efforts to stave off competition from strong rival Chi Mei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), which will replace AU Optronics as the nation’s top flat-panel maker after wrapping up a three-way merger between Innolux Display Corp (群創光電), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp and TPO Display Corp (統寶光電) next week.
“The cooperation with TPV will help boost AU Optronics’ competitiveness to compete with Chimei Innolux, which is strong in assembling TV sets with the help of its parent company Hon Hai Precision Industrial Cot Ltd (鴻海精密),” Roger Yu (游智超), a flat-panel analyst with Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券), said by telephone yesterday.
AU Optronics and TPV planned to invest an initial US$40 million in forming BriVictory Display Technology (Labuan) Co (冠智顯示器科技), an LCD module and TV set assembly company in Gorzow, Poland, a joint statement released yesterday said.
“We hope to strengthen our expansion in Europe via this new business model,” AU Optronics spokesperson Hsiao Ya-wen (蕭雅文) said.
The new company is scheduled to start production in the third quarter of this year, she said.
The new plant will be AU Optronics’ third module plant after establishing manufacturing sites in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Separately, the company’s board also approved another proposal to invest an additional US$10 million in BriView Electronics Corp (景智光電).
BriView, which AU Optronics acquired from local electronics maker Qisda Corp (佳世達) last year, makes TVs for other companies such as Chinese TV maker Haier Group (海爾).
AU Optronics estimated that BriView shipped 1 million units last year.
In addition to BriView, AU Optronics also operates a TV assembly venture with Changchong Electric Co (長虹) in Sichuan Province, China, with an initial capacity of 3 million units a year.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150
RSS