AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel maker, yesterday said it has signed an agreement with Japanese display material supplier Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd to jointly develop next-generation OLED displays and patents in an attempt to catch up with rivals making the high-resolution panels for smartphones and TVs.
The Hsinchu-based company has repeatedly postponed its timetable to mass-produce OLED panels and industry analysts question whether AUO will be able to catch up with market leaders, even with Idemitsu’s help.
Rival Samsung Mobile Displays has started manufacturing active matrix OLED displays in a fifth-generation factory and has unveiled its plan to build an eighth-generation factory, according to a report by market researcher NPD DisplaySearch.
AUO plans to start production of the first batch of OLED panels for mobile devices next quarter, company spokesperson Hsiao Ya-wen (蕭雅文) said by telephone yesterday. That is two quarters behind the company’s original schedule of starting commercial operation at the end of last year.
“This [deal] will accelerate business growth in AUO’s small-sized OLED displays for smartphones and tablets, which have emerged as a new growth area in the display industry, and that of large-sized OLED displays for TVs,” AUO said in a statement.
Shipments of OLED TVs are expected to grow to more than 11 million in 2017, from 113,000 units this year, NPD DisplaySearch forecast. By revenues, OLED displays were expected to contribute more than US$4 billion to panel makers last year and to increase to more than US$20 billion by 2018, the US research firm said.
Despite potential growth in the OLED market, “AUO probably will not be able to enjoy the price premium delivered by OLED displays as it has lagged far behind its competitors,” Roger Yu (游智超), a LCD industry analyst with Polaris Securities Co (寶來證券), said.
Yu expects AUO to begin large-scale manufacture of OLED displays in the second half of next year, meaning the Taiwanese company would be at least one-and-half years late in supplying such high-resolution thin displays.
“The strategic alliance with Idemitsu will be of very limited help to AUO in speeding up its production of OLED displays,” Yu 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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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