What’s in a name when it comes to consumer electronics? Plenty, perhaps, when it comes to established branding, public image, reliability and perception of value. But more and more these days, a brand name does not identify the actual manufacturer—especially in some instances where virtually every single LCD TV unit bearing a brand name was actually outsourced to another maker, according to the latest quarterly numbers (Q3) compiled by industry researcher DisplaySearch.
Those brands that outsourced up to 100 percent of their manufactured LCD TV units in the last quarter, included Grundig, HP, Polaroid, ViewSonic and Westinghouse—along with Vizio, one of the biggest (and most surprising) HD sales leaders in America in the past year. Philips outsourced more than 60 percent of its LCD TVs to OEMs (original equipment makers) in the quarter.
Overall, manufacturing of nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of the 20.1 million LCD television units shipped in Q3 were outsourced by such OEMs as TPV, Jabil, AmTran, Proview, Vestel and Wistron.
