Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), the major assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad, yesterday said it is making 60-inch LED TVs for the nation’s top telecoms operator, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), using flat screens from money-losing Sakai Display Productions Co (SDP) in Japan.
The company also announced it was supplying 60-inch LED TVs for local multiple system operator Kbro Co Ltd (凱擘) and was in talks with more content providers to supply these flat-screen TVs to China, Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) vice chairman Tai Cheng-wu (戴正吳) said.
SDP also plans to make 70-inch and 80-inch displays for TVs in the near future, he said.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
In July, Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) bought 979,200 shares, or a 37.6 percent stake, in SDP for ¥49 billion (US$614 million) via his own company SIO International Holdings Ltd.
SDP operates the world’s sole 10th-generation LCD plant in Sakai, Japan, with an annual capacity of 6 million 60-inch displays. SIO and Sharp, which also holds a 37.6 percent share of SDP, own half the capacity each, Hon Hai said.
Through partnerships with Internet TV operators and TV brands, Gou hopes to maintain capacity utilization at SDP’s factories and help it stem chronic losses.
SDP’s capacity utilization has risen from as low as 20 percent to 70 percent following Gou’s equity investment, Tai said.
SDP is set to make super high-resolution displays, dubbed 4KX2K displays, next year.
“We aim for SDP to break-even in the fourth quarter of this year and hope its operations will improve further next year,” Tai said.
SDP is expected to launch an initial public offering program on the local stock market in 2015 or 2016, he said.
Chunghwa Telecom and Kbro are offering the 60-inch LCD TVs at NT$38,800 a unit, a price even lower than a 46-inch LCD TV.
Chunghwa Telecom said it hoped to boost the number of media-on-demand service subscribers it has to 1.4 million, up 22 percent from the current 1.18 million, through subsidized flat-screen TVs.
Kbro plans to sell 5,000 of its own-brand 60-inch TVs made by Hon Hai before the Lunar New Year holidays, which fall in February.
Last month, Vizio Inc started selling 60-inch TVs made by Hon Hai in North America for US$999 per unit. The US TV brand hopes to sell 400,000 60-inch TVs in the current quarter, market researcher NPD DisplaySearch said yesterday.
In addition to Chunghwa Telecom and Kbro, China’s Le TV (樂視) is expected to be Hon Hai’s next partner, Tai said.
The collaboration “is likely to take place after the [Lunar] New Year holidays next year,” he said.
The major broadcaster in China’s Hunan Province, Hunan Satellite TV (湖南衛視), was also on the shortlist, Tai added.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure