AfterDawn: News

Samsung Electronics Co. LTD and Sony Corp. will invest further in their joint LCD venture, S-LCD Corporation, which was formed in April 2004. According to a Samsung executive, the pair will invest further to meet rising demands for large sized flat-screen televisions. "Both sides reached a consensus on the joint investment and working-level officials are now discussing details such as the timing and amount of the investment," Yeong Duk Cho, vice president of Samsung's LCD business said.

The joint venture has just started shipments of LCD sets from an eight-generation production line, and the plan for further investment would see a second eighth-generation production line being produced. Such a line is capable of producing panels larger than 50-inches in size. "It took a couple of months for Sony to decide on its investment in the first 8G (eighth generation) line. I believe it'll take a similar period of time for Sony to make a decision on this," Cho said.



Considering the recent plans from Sharp Corp. to invest $3 billion in the construction of an LCD plant using tenth-generation technology, and now possible impending further investment for S-LCD Corp, the industry appears to be very confident about market demand for LCD in the coming years. A plant like that which Sharp envisions could output 60-inch or larger LCD panels.

"Sharp's tenth-generation facility is best suited for producing 42-inch panels, although it can use bigger glass sheets," Cho said. "For now, we want to concentrate on eighth-generation technology, targeting the 50-inch segment."

Source:
MarketWatch

Written by: James Delahunty @ 2 Sep 2007 5:41