Skyworth Display Technologies (Guangdong, China) reports that is now shipping two DLP-RPTVs in the China market. Both are based upon the 0.55-inch SVGA chip set and are used in 43- and 53-inch 4:3-aspect sets. The prices are impressive at ~$2,000 and ~$2,500, respectively, including value added tax, although the company acknowledges these will need to drop to ignite the market. There are three versions of the 53-inch model; a video-only monitor, an integrated SDTV and a PC/SDTV version.

Skyworth Display VP, Rawdon Cheung, says they have been shipping units since last December. The engine is built by Delta Electronics (Taoyuan, Taiwan) (www.deltaww.com) and Skyworth assembles the sets in its Shenzhen factory. Existing capacity can produce 3,600 sets per month, but will be expanded to 25,000 sets per month by early 2004, says Cheung.

China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has predicted that China will need 1.5M RPTVs in 2003, with DLP and LCOS each capturing 20% of the total.

"The market for microdisplay-based RPTVs is still very small, so there is no need to create different sector for different technologies at this moment, " notes Cheung. "However, I believe microdisplay-based RPTVs will displace CRT-RPTVs within 5 years."

In a mid-June, director and China regional president of Skyworth Group (Hong Kong, China), Zhang Xuebin, revealed a strategic alliance with Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) (www.dlp.com) that will focus on promoting DLP-RPTV in China in the second half of the year. This means the two companies will work together to expand the DLP-RPTV market in China with the aim of effectively integrating the DLP industry chain and rapidly opening up China's DLP market. It looks like TI will also supply Skyworth with DLP chip sets directly, thus enabling Skyworth to make projection engines too, we suspect.

TI says Skyworth is it's first partner in the Chinese color TV field. We presume that the SVA relationship with InFocus doesn't count because the engines come from InFocus. As an important partner on DLP in China, TI engaged with Skyworth about one year ago. And, it has reportedly shifted its Pan-China regional headquarters to Shanghai to better exploit the market.

Zhang says that since November 2000 the group has put $10M in Skyworth Display Technologies Co., which is engaged in R&D of large screen display devices with DLP, LCOS and LCD technologies. It has already started to ship a 43-inch LCOS-RPTV with panels from Aurora and may soon begin shipping another LCOS-RPTV using panels from SpatiaLight. It sells CRT-RPTV sets through a sister company and is producing HTPS-based RPTVs too. By placing more emphasis on DLP with this new strategic partnership, Skyworth has upped the ante for the LCOS supporters to compete effectively in the China market.

DL53V-TV - 53-inch SDTV Monitor, SVGA, 480 nits, 700:1, DLP, ~$2,400 ESP
DL43V-TV - 43-inch SDTV Monitor, SVGA, 480 nits, 700:1, DLP, ~$2,000 ESP

Skyworth Display, Rawdon Cheung, [86] -0755-2710-5981, rawdon@skyworthdisplay.com

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