BenQ aims to ship 500,000 LCD TVs in 2005

Taipei, Jan. 25, 2005 (CENS)--Taiwan's BenQ Corp. has projected to deliver 500,000 liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs this year, according to Peter Chen, BenQ's president of digital media business division.

Chen pointed out that BenQ has grabbed orders for 100,000 LCD TVs for the first quarter. If everything goes smoothly, Chen claimed, BenQ is expected to become Taiwan's No. 1 maker of LCD TVs, outstripping major rivals such as Tatung, Sampo and Teco.

BenQ shipped about 200,000 LCD TVs in 2004. This year, the firm expects to command a 3.5% share of the global LCD TV shipments of some 14 million units.

In addition to stable businesses with major original design manufacturing (ODM) customers in Japan and Europe, BenQ's own-brand production ratio is expected to rise to over 30% this year.

According to Chen, BenQ has successfully developed the Sense-Eye chip technology and integrated it with LCD panels and other system parameters, making BenQ's LCD TV products different from and better than other general counterparts. BenQ's mainstream LCD TV models (26-, 30- and 32-inch) have been enjoying hot sales in Southeast Asia and Europe, though they bear higher prices than similar models launched by rivals, Chen added.

K.Y. Lee, BenQ chairman, deemed that the declining LCD TV prices are expected to push up the global demand to some 20 million units from eight million units in 2004.

In addition to the annual shipment goal of 500,000 LCD TVs, BenQ's digital media business division has decided to retrieve the right of releasing contract orders for digital versatile disc (DVD) player/recorder models in a bid to strengthen its interactions with Philips BenQ Digital Storage (PBDS), a venture between BenQ and Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands.

BenQ also plans to push launch new DVD player/recorder models with built-in over-200GB hard-disk and hopes the monthly sales volume of such products can outstrip 10,000 units.