Home appliance and computer maker Tatung Co has opened the first of several planned plants in Taiwan for the manufacture of flat-panel computer monitors.
Taiwan is the world’s top manufacturer of notebook computers, but until now has been dependent on Korean and Japanese suppliers for the panels, which are used to make thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT-LCDs). Quanta Computer alone, the island’s top maker, expects to produce two million notebook PCs this year and 3 million next year.
The plant, run by Tatung subsidiary Chunghwa Picture Tubes, has an annual capacity of 230,000 TFT-LCDs for notebook computers. Another six Taiwan firms, including PC giant Acer Corp, are setting up TFT-LCD production lines and the island expects to have a 30% share of the international market by 2003.
CPT, the world largest color display tube maker, will use technology provided by Japan’s Mitsubishi to make the TFT-LCDs, which account for about a third of a notebook PC’s production costs.
Demand for TFT-LCD is far higher than supply at the moment, and the trend will continue in the next few years, a Tatung official said. TFT-LCD supply will lag demand by 14% this year and 20% next year due to an expected rise in global demand for notebook computers, according to a research report by investment bank Warburg Dillon Read.
