AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) yesterday said it planned to form a US$16 million LCD TV module assembly venture in Brazil with TPV Technology Ltd (冠捷科技), paving the way for its foray into another fast-growing BRIC country following its moves into China.
BRIC refers to Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The joint venture with Hong Kong-listed TPV would be the Taiwanese panel maker’s first production base in Latin America, through which it hopes to provide just-in-time services and customer support, AU Optronics said in a statement.
The proposal was still awaiting approval from regulators, the Hsinchu-based company said.
SECOND VENTURE
The Brazilian plant would be AU Optronics’ second TV module venture with TPV after their US$40 million venture in Gorzow, Poland, which opened in March.
AU Optronics and TPV would own 19 percent and 81 percent of the Brazilian venture respectively.
“The joint venture will provide TV panel modules to TPV and other global TV brands in Brazil,” AU Optronics spokesperson Hsiao Yawen (蕭雅文) said by telephone yesterday.
The joint venture will be set up in a special economic zone in Manaus, Brazil, where it can enjoy tariff exemptions, Hsiao said.
TPV, which sells own-brand TVs under the AOC brand, is the fourth-largest TV maker in Brazil, with 10 percent of the market.
AU Optronics is eyeing the strong growth potential of the flat-panel TV market in Brazil, where cathode-ray tube TVs still account for about half of the TV market.
FUTURE SALES
LCD TV sales are expected to get a further boost when Brazil hosts the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, the Hsinchu-based firm said in its statement.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS