“It promises to revolutionize television in the way the iPad did computing, and the chance to make Apple Inc’s much-anticipated smart TV could explain Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry’s bold move to buy into 100-year-old Japanese firm Sharp,” Jonathan Standing reports for Reuters.
“Hon Hai took around a 10 percent stake in Sharp Corp, with the Taiwanese firm’s billionaire founder Terry Gou putting his own money into a deal that marries Sharp’s advanced TV technology with Hon Hai’s expertise in making Apple products,” Standing reports. “That could put the Taiwan firm in a strong position to push for orders to make the Apple TV, potentially taking the business from Korean rivals such as LG Display (034220.KS) while furthering Hon Hai’s aim to move beyond contract making and boost its brand profile. ‘Hon Hai is already the assembler of Apple’s iPhone and iPad, it needs the next driver, which is Apple TV,’ said Yuanta Securities analyst Vincent Chen. ‘It’s something that Terry Gou cannot afford not to do. But this is a very big gamble.'”
Standing reports, “It’s a gamble because, Chen said, there is no guarantee that Sharp/Hon Hai would actually get the orders. For example, if Apple wanted to use the new AMOLED technology, an alternative to LCD displays, in the TV, Sharp would have to develop it because it does not yet have it. ‘We expect Apple to debut the iTV by the end of this year, and it is likely to adopt Sharp’s 10th generation TFT production line to produce TFT LCDs for iTVs,’ Daiwa Capital Markets said in a research note seen by Reuters, referring to a technology that uses thin film transistors for improved LCD image quality.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Taiwan’s access to the Chinese work force and large-scale production capacity, Japan’s technology and patents, Apple’s ingenuity and focus on the consumer.
Sounds like a winning match to me!
These will more likely be used in future MBA laptops as well as desktops. Don’t think we’ll see an integrated ATV/iTV anytime soon.
Reuters is as bad as DigiTimes.