Betting on bright prospects for the global flat-panel television market, Quanta Computer Inc (
The venture, with initial capital of US$65 million, is set to kick off in the third quarter, Michael Wang (
The shareholding proportion between the two firms was not disclosed, and Wang said that they will hammer out more details on plant construction, locations and manpower after completing due diligence over the next three months.
"We are banking on the flat-panel TV market, as it will expand at a rigorous pace over the next four to five years," he said.
According to Wang, flat-panel TVs -- including liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs and plasma TVs which came onto the market in 2002 -- will account for over 50 percent of the world's TV market as soon as 2009, pushing aside traditional cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs.
That momentum is impressive considering that notebook computers, by comparison, will need around 18 years to take up half of the global computer market -- surpassing desktops PCs -- in 2008, he added.
He said that the booming slim-screen TV market presents new growth opportunities for Quanta, whose notebook segment contributed more than 80 percent of its overall revenues last year.
Quanta only shipped some 350,000 flat-panel TVs last year, generating a mere 2 percent of its overall revenues, the company said. It expects the new collaboration to raise to "more than double" this year's shipments from last year's, Wang added.
Sanyo, which is in the global top ten of flat-TV brands, has shipped 6.5 million to 7 million units of both CRT and slim-screen televisions annually, mostly to the US and Europe.
The alliance is part of a restructuring plan for Sanyo, which is forecasting a second straight year of record losses. The Japanese firm last July announced it would cut 14,000 jobs, reduce interest-bearing debt by 50 percent and form ties with other companies in a bid to return to profitability.
"Sanyo has the sales channels, and Quanta can offer superb manufacturing capabilities. The large volumes from Sanyo will improve our economies of scale, which will pull down our overall production costs," Wang said.
According to Ted Lu (呂哲強), Quanta's senior vice president, around one-third of the flat panels supplied to the new venture will come from Quanta Display Inc (廣輝電子), the nation's fifth-biggest LCD-screen supplier and an affiliate of Quanta Computer.
The partnership announcement was made after the stock market closed. Shares of Quanta Computer increased 4.3 percent to close at NT$52 while Quanta Display added 5.8 percent to close at NT$11.90 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
RSS