Talks among three major Chinese LCD manufacturers makers hoping to create an international panel-making enterprise that could compete for a large market share of LCD monitors for HD sets and computers failed last weekend, with no new talks known to have been scheduled. The companies have been losing money on their LCD operations.
Armed with the backing of China’s communist government (which would have had to approve any merger agreement anyway), BOE Technology Group, SVA Electron, and Longteng had been in discussions over a possible merger for several months. But in separate statements on Dec. 29, the firms said unspecified “technical obstacles” proved to be an insurmountable in achieving a joint agreement.
Chinese LCD makers in the world’s most populous nation have never been able to compete head-on in quality and costs with established Asian LCD makers (notably in Japan and South Korea) and a merger was viewed as one way to vie for a piece of the lucrative (and growing) LCD pie, according to Reuters.
