Sampo lands major PDP TV orders from U.S. retailers

Taipei, July 2, 2003 (CENS)--Taiwan home appliance maker Sampo Co. recently announced that it has received big orders for plasma display panel (PDP) TVs from Bestbuy, Costco and Gateway of the United States.

Sampo general manager and CEO H. C. Ho said that his company expects to ship about 8,000 PDP TVs to the U.S. this month, bringing the company's annual deliveries to about 100,000 units this year. The figure is expected to double to about 200,000 units next year.

Ho said that Sampo's high-end 50-inch PDP TV models have successfully tapped the U.S. market through Bestbuy, one of the largest 3C (computer, communication, and consumer electronics) distributors there. Sampo currently delivers about 500 PDP TVs to Bestbuy per month, making it one of the top-three suppliers to the U.S. firm along with Sony of Japan and Philips of the Netherlands.

With the strong exports of PDP TVs, Sampo expects revenue to surge by 40% this year from last year's NT$13 billion (US$375.72 million at US$1:NT$34.6). Sampo said that revenue in the first-half of the year reached NT$10 billion (US$289.02 million), and pre-tax profits in the first five months hit NT$500 million (US$14.45 million), up significantly from about NT$190 million (US$5.49 million) in the same period last year.

Ho pointed out that Sampo garnered revenue of over NT$2 billion (US$57.8 million) from PDP TVs in the first half this year, compared with about only NT$200 million (US$5.78 million) during all of last year. Sampo currently has sells 42-inch and 50-inch PDP TV models, and it is scheduled to soon introduce a 63-inch model.

Ho claimed that Sampo has become one of the top-five PDP TV contract makers in the world.

Ho also announced that Sampo would pull ahead of local counterparts with the demonstration of digital versatile disc (DVD)-rewritable (RW) players next month. The CEO said that such new product is expected to contribute at least NT$1 billion (US$28.9 million) to Sampo's revenue next year. Sampo currently adopts Philips' DVD-RW format and U.S. chipsets in its DVD-RW player models.

Due to competition from low-cost rivals in mainland China, Ho said, DVD players can no longer be profitably made in Taiwan. The CEO said that his company has been developing DVD-RW players for a long time and expects the new product to enjoy smooth sales in the coming few years. DVD-RW players are currently priced at about US$600.

Ho said that Sampo would continue to strengthen its R&D capability and the advantage of its well-established division-of-labor manufacturing scheme in Taiwan and mainland China to elevate its competitiveness and win more original equipment/design manufacturing (OEM/ODM) orders.