minor changes in philips

Philips announced a joint venture with TPV Technology Limited, a large Taiwanese company. Moreover, 70% of the shares of this company will belong to TPV. And this newly formed company will produce TVs under the Philips brand. At least in the next five years.

Let's first look at the facts. And they lie in the fact that Philips does not just sell its TV division, but together with TPV creates a new company in which it will own 30% of the shares. According to the plan, about 4 thousand Philips employees who worked in the production of television sets should go there. However, it is not yet clear whether the new owner will hire all the “freed” workers to work.

Going to part with the TV business, the company was forced by unimportant sales figures of the television division - for several years its profit was consistently negative. The last drop was the results of the first quarter - instead of 165 million euros, predicted by analysts, the Dutch concern managed to earn only 137 million, the rest was eaten by unprofitable projects.
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In general, recently the competition in the market of LCD TVs has escalated to the limit. The fact is that most of the production of the necessary components is controlled by Koreans from LG and Samsung, and also belongs to several little-known in Europe, but very large Chinese corporations like the same TPV. It is clear that they are not going to share their income with anyone on their own initiative, and therefore companies that are not able to provide themselves, for example, with LCD matrices of their own production, are now rather difficult. The earthquake in Japan did not alleviate the situation - electricity in the Land of the Rising Sun is still supplied with interruptions, due to which some complex conveyor production has simply been stopped.

Specifically for Philips, the situation is aggravated by the fact that several years ago the company similarly sold its semiconductor design and manufacturing business and left the joint venture with LG display company.

Chinese

So, in whose hands does Philips give their televisions? TPV Technology Ltd. far from new to the television industry. In 1934, Admiral Corp. was established in Chicago. During World War II, founder Ross Siragusa (Ross Siragusa) was able to obtain contracts for various electronic equipment for the US Army. After the war, he invested in the production of televisions and radios.

From the curious facts: a 19-inch TV from the 1950 line would cost $ 695, which would be $ 6,400 today!

Siraguza should be called the pioneer of the Chinese lands, because as early as 1967 it almost completely transferred the plant to Taiwan (for those times it was not a typical solution to move the high-tech manufacturing base to China), for which the AOC company (Admiral Overseas Corporation) was created. However, Siragusa could not compete with Japanese manufacturers and after several resales the company received the name TPV Technology. Under the AOC brand today computer monitors are produced, which are quite successfully sold in different countries. In addition, as an OEM, TPV makes monitors for IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and holds a very large market share. But what is interesting, since 2005, she begins to actively cooperate with Philips, for which she also produces monitors and televisions of the initial level. In the company's card on Forbes.com (from 2009) we find an even more interesting detail - Philips owns 27% of TPV. In other words, it is possible that if you have an inexpensive Philips TV at home, it is produced by TPV.

The next intriguing moment is already from the official press release of Philips, quote: “The main activity of the new joint venture will be the development, production, distribution, marketing and sales of Philips TVs worldwide, with the exception of mainland China, India, the USA, Canada, Mexico and a number of countries South America. " That is “with the exception of”, frankly, leaves many questions. In these countries will be sold some "original" Philips, not made on TPV? Or does Philips even leave these markets? The latter, of course, is incredible. So far I will only assume that in the "excluded" countries the Dutch will reserve sales. Further in the press release are the details of the transaction, payments and other boring things, from the important only one thing - the brand will remain, the TVs of the new company will be released under the Philips label.

What's next?

The first thing I wouldn’t worry about is the support of TVs already sold. Pioneer left the plasma market, but the company still provides warranty repairs and parts for past TV models. Philips made the same commitment. Secondly, not the fact that the quality of new TVs will deteriorate. Philips stated that TVs would be produced under the strict control of Dutch management. At least for the first time. While TPV does not learn to meet European standards. You can believe this, if only because Philips has a strong position in the markets of medical equipment, lighting, household appliances. "Down" their brand, they will not allow.

Editors of magazines Salon Audio Video and Stereo & Video - Alexey Egorov and Andrey Dementiev, especially for Nomobile.ru.