Wintek to Invest US$150 M. to Build Touch Panel Plant in Vietnam

Taipei, Dec. 17, 2010 (CENS)--The Taiwan-based Wintek Corp., a touch panel maker, has decided to invest around US$150 million in building a brand new factory in Vietnam, in a bid to take advantage of cheaper labor costs there than in China, according to company chairman Huang Hsien-hsiung.

As market demand for display panels has skyrocketed along with their growing applications to smartphones and tablet PCs, Wintek has been busy filling contract orders throughout the year, and its revenues have kept rising significantly since September. Hopefully, the firm's sales revenue will hit NT$11.5 billion in the first quarter of 2011, institutional investors estimate.

To firmly seize the booms, Wintek is going to build a factory in Vietnam to handle rear-end production of touchscreen modules starting in the second half of 2011. Huang indicated that Vietnam's favorable investment climate, such as cheap labor and land costs, has inspired his firm to set up production lines there, especially at a time when worker's wages have been rising in China.

Coincidentally, Taiwan's leading producer of resistance touch panels, Young Fast Optical Inc., has also established its new factory in Vietnam, which turns out about 2 million resistance touch panels a month now, and will double the output by the end of 2010.