Source: Financial Times
Time: February 23, 2003
Title: "Philips and BenQ Form Major Joint Venture to Deliver Next Generation Optical Storage"

Summary of the joint venture:

• "Philips BenQ Digital Storage aims at a mid-term market-share of fifteen percent in a total world market of two-hundred million units annually, which currently has a value of EUR 8 billion, and plans to win significant gains in the region. The joint venture will pave the way for both companies to leverage their strengths, creating a resource-integrated company that will provide innovative next generation storage solutions, which include CD-Rom and DVD-ROM, but which is evolving into CD-RW, DVD-RW and even DVD+RW."
• "The cooperation in the new company will further strengthen the successful DVD+RW platform"
• "The joint venture builds on the dedicated design center for reading and/or recording of data applications which was established in April 2002. It may later include optical storage devices for consumer applications. The company will be headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan."

Reason:

• • "In a recent poll by MORI, 90% of senior decision-makers cited storage technologies as a core component of their overall business planning requirements. For this reason, demand for innovative storage solutions is rising rapidly in the Middle East, as IT managers struggle to contain the huge volumes of data that their companies produce every year."

Quotes:

• Robert Dung, managing director, BenQ Middle East: "Philips is renowned for its research and intellectual property portfolio while BenQ is strong in development, manufacturing and marketing. The new company will prove to be a strong force in the optical storage industry, using our understanding of the market to provide world-class technology to the Middle East and beyond."
• Mr. Arthur van der Poel, member of Philips' Board of Management: "This joint venture concludes the series of measures taken to bring Optical Storage back to profitability and will position us well for continued participation in the data segment in a profitable way."