Philips NV is about to create a joint venture with Thomson SA and GIE Planecran for the manufacture of flat-panel liquid crystal displays according to La Tribune de l’Expansion. Philips declined to confirm the report but admitted that Philips management had cited Thomson and Sagem SA as possible partners and GIE Planecran, which has developed a 10 colour screen that it says is 15% to 20% cheaper than Japanese ones – is jointly owned by Sagem and France’s Centre National d’Etudes de Telecommunications. La Tribune said the three would create a new company in Eindhoven at the end of next month, which would begin production of LCD screens in mid-1993 at Philips’ new $125m factory, which has capacity of 500,000 screens per year (CI No 1,941). Philips would hold 70% to 80% of the venture. Two years ago, there were negotiations between Philips and Thomson Consumer Electronics SA, which had installed a pilot production line in Grenoble for flat-panel displays for military applications.
