Source: SinoCast China IT Watch
Time: December 12, 2006
Title: "BenQ Expects 25% Growth"

Taiwan-based BenQ expects its revenues in the local Taiwan market to grow 25 per cent on year to reach NTD 5 billion in 2007, up from NTD 4 billion projected for 2006, according to Hank Hung, general manager of Taiwan at BenQ.

To sustain its projected growth, BenQ will focus on related LCD products, including LCD TVs, LCD monitors, notebooks, and handsets, Hung noted.

Sales of the company's own-brand LCD TVs and JoyBook-series notebooks have been growing steadily in Taiwan, reaching 3,000 and 1,000 units, respectively, per month, Hung indicated.

BenQ also aims to ship over 500,000 handsets in the Taiwan market in 2007, making it the largest local-brand handset vendor and the fourth largest among all brands, Hung stated.

BenQ plants to launch three new handsets, including two 3G models, in the first quarter of 2007, further enhancing its leading position in the 3G segment over two other local-brand vendors, Asustek Computer and Inventec Appliances, Hung noted.

In related news, BenQ's revenues generated from the China market are expected to increase 30 per cent on year to CNY 5.0 billion this year, and the company expects sales to grow to CNY 7.0 billion in 2007 and CNY 10.0 billion in 2008, according to sources at BenQ.

BenQ lately decided to set up a new mobile phone manufacturing facility in Shanghai as it consolidates major production capacity in the city.

The new factory, to be located in Pudong's Jinqiao Export and Processing Zone, is expected to open in the second quarter of next year. When it begins operations, more than 80 percent of BenQ Mobile's global manufacturing capacity will move to Shanghai from Taiwan, Germany, and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, said Danny Yao, general manager of BenQ China's communications division.

"We have to be closer to clients, and Shanghai brings us a fantastic logistics infrastructure system and favorable tax policies," Yao said after a conference to promote BenQ's latest music and GPS phones yesterday in Shanghai.

At present, BenQ Mobile's sales across the Chinese mainland account for 10 percent of the company's global sales, and the figure will go "much higher" in 2007, Yao said, without providing a detailed forecast.

BenQ next year will launch 15 to 20 new phone models in China compared with about 10 in 2006. Meanwhile, BenQ will expand its distribution channel to 3,000 stores nationwide from about 1,000 at present, according to Yao.

China's mobile phone user base has surpassed 430 million, adding about 5 million every month, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.

BenQ's unprofitable German mobile-phone unit, acquired from Siemens, filed for bankruptcy protection recently.

German media then reported that BenQ would stop selling its own brand of products and focus on made-to-order business. "Despite the bankruptcy of our German facility, we will continue using the co-brand BenQ-Siemens or BenQ itself," Yao said.

Meanwhile, BenQ is developing phones based on China's homegrown third-generation technology.

The company said on August 22 it had an unaudited net loss in the three months ending on June 30 of NTD2.51 billion, reversing a net profit of NTD480.6 million it reported for the same period a year earlier.