Rich Fiscus
22 Nov 2007 18:16
South Korea's Samsung Electronics will be investing over $2 billion dollars to expand its line of LCD displays next year. This isn't exactly revolutionary as Samsung is the number one LCD manufacturer in the world. More interesting is the fact that the move will be made independently of their current LCD manufacturing partner Sony.
The investment will go toward development of LCD displays between 40 and 50 inches. Over the last several months there has been a noticeable shift among flat panel manufacturers toward concentrating on larger displays, which typically have a higher margin for manufacturers than smaller screens.
Competition between LCD and plasma displays has also reached an all time high. With the inroads made by LCD manufacturers, especially Vizio, plasma technology has seen a lot of high profile innovation intended to maintain enough distinction between it and LCD to stimulate sales.
Also in the last few months Samsung's sales lead has withstood at least a minor threat from upstart manufacturer Vizio. During the second quarter Vizio shipped more flat panel televisions than any other company, including Samsung, however the prevailing wisdom in the electronics industry is that Vizio's meteoric rise wasn't quite as impressive as originally reported. Once retailers established new stock levels for Vizio displays, Samsung regained their place as the number one flat panel TV supplier in the third quarter.
Sources:
Reuters
Wall Street Journal