Samsung & Sony Battle To Be LCD TV Top Dog

During the last quarter of 2007 and January 2008, Sony took over from Samsung as the top LCD vendor in some countries such as a Taiwan, on the back of big price cuts it made in Dec 2007.

Recent data from the market-research firm DisplaySearch, has shown that Sony overtook Samsung Electronics as the world’s biggest manufacturer of LCD televisions with 19.5 percent of the global market share in the last quarter of 2007. Samsung had 19.3 percent in the same period and Sharp was ranked as No. 4 with approx. 10 percent of share.

To meet growing demand Sony has said it is planning to also buy television LCD panels from its rival Sharp during 2008 to diversify its procurement channels to meet growing demand and cut costs.

Sharp will provide 10th generation 40 inch High Definition LCD TVs from its plant in Sakai, Osaka prefecture, which is slated to start operating this year.

Historically, Sony sourced a major part of its LCD TV panels from S-LCD, a manufacturer of LCD TV panels based in Tangjeong, South Chungcheong Province in South Korea. S-LCD is jointly owned by Samsung Electronics and Sony.

Samsung Electronics and Sony jointly established the LCD maker with an investment of 2 trillion won in 2003. Since then Samsung has been buying half of S-LCD’s output and Sony the other half.

Panasonic has also recently announced plans to diversify away from its current a plasma-centric business and build a new manufacturing plant for LCD panels in and to strengthen a three-way partnership with Hitachi and Canon.

The fight for market share and dominance among the world’s leading LCD TV makers has taken on a new direction with these panel procurement deals between Japanese firms.

These initiatives have happened at a time of management turnmoil at Samsung Electronics ― the world’s No. 1 LCD maker in recent years - where executives are preoccupied soothing investors’ worries over the deepening bribery scandal involving the Samsung Group.

Industry estimates suggest that global demand for LCD TVs will reach 155 million units in five years, up from 74.8 million in 2007, primarily driven by strong sales in China and the United States.

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