Post by SandStorm on Jul 21, 2006 23:55:49 GMT
BenQ targeting cellphone, LCD TV markets
BY CHRISTY LEE S. W.
TAIWANESE consumer-electronics maker BenQ will be aggressively vying for a bigger slice of the cellphone and LCD (liquid-crystal display) TV market in the coming months.
With BenQ’s acquisition of Siemen’s mobile-handset division last year and its strategic partnerships with storage vendor Lite-On, as well as LCD screen makers AU-Optronics and Quanta Display, the company is well positioned to attain its goal, said BenQ Asia-Pacific Corp vice-president Philip Newton.
He told In.Tech that the company's acquisition and mergers give it instant access to technologies and know-how to produce a variety of electronic products.
“This allows us to make better products more quickly, instead of spending like 10 years trying to figure it out all by ourselves,” he said.
One of the target areas that BenQ has its eye on in Malaysia is mobile phones.
According to Newton, the current crop of cellphone models by BenQ-Siemens are from its acquisition of Siemens' handset unit, but the company will not be promoting these phones in the Malaysian market.
“We are selling some of these phones in small quantities to test their market acceptance in Malaysia, but there will be no active marketing effort for now,” he said, explaining that the company will use feedback from its customers to design better phones.
He said BenQ-Siemens would only start to actively promote a new line of cellphones in this country early next year.
“We want to do it right the first time – we want to create a good first impression in Malaysia,” Newton said.
“Next year we will release five to 10 phones that are so new and unique that they will catch consumers by surprise.”
He said those phones will feature large-capacity hard drives, camera-phone quality that rivals that of digital cameras, improved audio playback capabilities, and an entirely new form factor – as opposed to the typical candy bar, clamshell and slider designs.
He also hinted at a speech-to-text feature, which would allow users to dictate text messages instead of using a keypad.
Newton said BenQ would also be launching its own series of LCD TVs in Malaysia. This would be the VA series, which will kick off at the end of this month, and the VL series which will launch during the fourth quarter of this year.
“Our LCD TVs will be very competitively priced,” he claimed. “Our technology allows us to make 42in panels for almost the same cost as a 40in unit, or a 37in panel for the cost of a 32in unit,” Newton said.
He said the company is confident that it can be among the top three vendors in the LCD TV market.
source:
star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2006/7/20/corpit/14880806&sec=corpit
BY CHRISTY LEE S. W.
TAIWANESE consumer-electronics maker BenQ will be aggressively vying for a bigger slice of the cellphone and LCD (liquid-crystal display) TV market in the coming months.
With BenQ’s acquisition of Siemen’s mobile-handset division last year and its strategic partnerships with storage vendor Lite-On, as well as LCD screen makers AU-Optronics and Quanta Display, the company is well positioned to attain its goal, said BenQ Asia-Pacific Corp vice-president Philip Newton.
He told In.Tech that the company's acquisition and mergers give it instant access to technologies and know-how to produce a variety of electronic products.
“This allows us to make better products more quickly, instead of spending like 10 years trying to figure it out all by ourselves,” he said.
One of the target areas that BenQ has its eye on in Malaysia is mobile phones.
According to Newton, the current crop of cellphone models by BenQ-Siemens are from its acquisition of Siemens' handset unit, but the company will not be promoting these phones in the Malaysian market.
“We are selling some of these phones in small quantities to test their market acceptance in Malaysia, but there will be no active marketing effort for now,” he said, explaining that the company will use feedback from its customers to design better phones.
He said BenQ-Siemens would only start to actively promote a new line of cellphones in this country early next year.
“We want to do it right the first time – we want to create a good first impression in Malaysia,” Newton said.
“Next year we will release five to 10 phones that are so new and unique that they will catch consumers by surprise.”
He said those phones will feature large-capacity hard drives, camera-phone quality that rivals that of digital cameras, improved audio playback capabilities, and an entirely new form factor – as opposed to the typical candy bar, clamshell and slider designs.
He also hinted at a speech-to-text feature, which would allow users to dictate text messages instead of using a keypad.
Newton said BenQ would also be launching its own series of LCD TVs in Malaysia. This would be the VA series, which will kick off at the end of this month, and the VL series which will launch during the fourth quarter of this year.
“Our LCD TVs will be very competitively priced,” he claimed. “Our technology allows us to make 42in panels for almost the same cost as a 40in unit, or a 37in panel for the cost of a 32in unit,” Newton said.
He said the company is confident that it can be among the top three vendors in the LCD TV market.
source:
star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2006/7/20/corpit/14880806&sec=corpit