Nikon Corp said Monday it won its first Chinese supply order for flat-panel-making equipment as demand for the thin screens surges in the country.
The world's second-largest manufacturer of this equipment won an order from China's largest panel-maker, BOE Technology Group for 16 advanced screen-making machines, according to Tsunesaburo Uemura, a spokesman for Nikon, cited by Bloomberg News.
Equipment shipments will begin at the year's end, said Uemura, who declined to disclose the value of the order.
But Bloomberg News quoted an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co as saying the order may be worth 50 billion yen ($555 million).
Nikon's announcement came as the country's LCD (liquid-crystal-display) TV market has been boosted by the government's economic stimulus plan, which includes subsidies to TV buyers in both urban and rural areas.
As one of the world's largest electronic markets, China's flat-panel TV industry - which includes both LCD and LED (light-emitting diode) TVs - has grown rapidly in recent years as consumers in mostly urban areas replace their old, bulky CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs with new, flat-screen sets.
According to DisplaySearch, the number of LCD sets sold in China is estimated at 23.6 million units last year, up 76 percent from a year earlier.
In June 2009, BOE Technology Group raised $1.76 billion through share placement to expand its LCD production capacity. The company is building a sixth-generation factory in Hefei, Anhui province and plans to build a new LCD production line in Beijing this year.
The world's largest LCD maker, Samsung Electronics, and Japan's largest LCD TV maker, Sharp Corp, have also expressed interest in setting up factories in China.
Chen Hsuan-bin, CEO of AU Optronics Corp (AUO), a Taiwan-based flat-screen TV maker, said there are still 500 million CRT TVs in the country, which he expects will eventually be replaced.
