Teco to ship most of its LCD TVs to Europe this year

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on June 7, 2006. It reports that Taiwan's Teco Corp. plans to ship 200,000 liquid-crystal display televisions (LCD TVs) by the end of 2006. Europe will be the company's major export destination, taking up about 50 percent of the company's total exports, a considerable increase from the current figure of 30 percent.

According to Teco, more than 70 percent of the company's projected shipments will go overseas, with a majority of them destined for Europe. Specifically, 32-, 37- and 40-inch TVs are likely to be the major products for Europe, while 32- and 40-inch TVs will be the major products for the Japanese market. In 2005, the company entered Japan's LCD-TV market with brand name "TECO".

Teco plans to inaugurate its second European factory in Czech in June 2006, in order to support its European sales. The factory will produce 32-, 37-, 40- and 42-inch TVs. According to the company, sharp price declining of LCD panels for TVs will boost the market's procurement sentiment. For example, over the past two months, average price of 37-inch panels has dropped to US$600 from US$700.

According to Teco, the company plans to double its revenue to NT$75 billion (US$2.3 billion) in 2006, by tapping the markets in China, Russia, Brazil, India, Vietnam, Turk and the Middle East in the second half of the year. China is currently the only rising economy in which Teco has already developed a presence.

In April 2006, Teco gained revenue of NT$2.2 billion (US$71 million), which brought its total revenue for the first four months of 2006 to NT$9 billion (US$281 million). The April revenue represented a loss of 12.81 percent from the same month in 2005, but the revenue for the fist four months of 2006 was up 2.03 percent from the same period in 2005.