PVI wins orders for car-use 7-inch TFT-LCD panels from Sony

Taipei, June 24, 2005 (CENS)--Prime View International Co, Ltd. (PVI) has reportedly won orders for car-use 7-inch thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels from Sony of Japan, replacing original local supplier Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd. (CPT), Taiwan's No. 3 maker of large-sized panels.

CPT won orders for 7-inch panels from Sony last year but lost the deal recently to PVI, a major supplier of small and medium-sized TFT-LCD panels in Taiwan. CPT chairman C.H. Lin attributed the order switch to fierce price-cutting competition among local panel suppliers.

Industry sources said that PVI just acquired Royal Philips Electronics' electronic-paper display business and indirectly contacted Sony, one of Philips' original electronic-paper customers. In its deal with Philips, PVI will take over Philips' manufacturing equipment, patents and design technology of the e-paper display modules as well as the Philips' main customer, Sony Corp. Philips decided to withdraw from electronic-paper display business out of strategic consideration.

Industry sources said that Sharp of Japan is now the world's largest supplier of small and medium-sizes TFT-LCD panels, supplying part of 4.5-inch low temperature poly-silicon (LTPS) TFT-LCD panels used on Sony's new PSP handheld game machines.

PVI, however, has strategically skipped the small-sized panel business, focusing on the medium-sized market (6- to 9-inch). The unit price for mainstream 7-inch panels, the sources said, slid sharply in the past few quarters from US$70-US$80 last year to only US$32 in the first quarter this year, as a result of suppliers rushing to join the segment. The fall in the prices for medium-sized panels also caused PVI to suffer operating losses in the first quarter.

PVI's new chairman S.C. Liu claimed, however, that the prices of medium-sized TFT-LCD panels are expected to gradually become stable in the near future, and that PVI will turn profitable again in the second quarter.