Sampo, Teco gearing up for production in mainland China

Taipei, Oct. 8, 2003 (CENS)--Sampo Group and Teco Group, Taiwan's leading manufacturers of home appliances, are strengthening production deployment in mainland China.

Sampo has invested NT$1 billion (US$29.58 million at US$1:NT$33.8) to establish a Sampo Group Industrial Park in Kunshan of Jiangsu Province, which will be inaugurated on Oct. 24. Attending the upcoming will be Sampo's chairman Flelix Chen and president and CEO H.C. Ho. The industrial park will be used as the group's OEM/ODM (original equipment/design manufacturing) production center for home appliances in the mainland.

Sampo executives said the industrial park will be able to roll out four million liquid crystal display (LCD) television sets and monitors and 600,000 plasma display panel (PDP) TVs per year. The industrial park will Sampo boost strengthen production capacity of digital TVs to rival competitors over the long term.

The group is considering developing the industrial park as an operating headquarters to handle its investment and operations in the mainland.

Teco Group has also invested NT$1 billion (US$29.58 million) to set up a production center for white home appliances in Nanchang of Jiangxi Province. (White home appliances include such white-painted products as refrigerators, air conditioners, humidifiers, and microwave oven). The production center is expected to be inaugurated early next year.

In addition, Teco will set up another production center in Suzhou and Wuxi of Jiangsu Province to manufacture LCD TVs. The group said the production center is designed to meet the demand for shipment of LCD TVs next year.

Teco said its Nanchang production facility would concentrate on such white home appliances as refrigerators and washing machines. The group has invited some international firms and domestic satellite firms to set up production facilities in its Nanchang production center so as to form an integrated production base for home appliances.

Since the beginning of this year, Teco has been very aggressive in developing the domestic LCD TV market. At the end of May, the group launched a 30-inch LCD TV at a low unit price of NT$69,900. Because of the low-price strategy, the group has become the island's largest supplier of LCD TVs. The group has already sold 15-, 20-, and 30-inch LCD TVs to Japan, the U.S. and Europe.

Seeing the booming demand of the international marketplace, Teco targets to sell 100,000 LCD TVs this year and 700,000 units next year.

To cope with the expected shipment of LCD TVs next year, Teco has added an assembly line at its Suzhou production center. The LCD TVs produced in Suzhou are expected to be delivered starting early next year.

In the longer term, the group will expand its Wuxi production facility, which now concentrates on producing medium- and large-sized motors, for the production of LCD TVs.