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Sony and Samsung Expand LCD plant

An LCD plant is going to receive a $2 billion expansion from Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co. Both Japanese and South Korean companies are looking for a larger share of the flat-screen market. The companies already formed a collective enterprise, S-LCD Corp, in South Korea to produce the panels.

The expansion allows Samsung, the world`s second-biggest maker of large-sized LCD last year, to use Sony`s brand power to expand the market for larger television panels. Analysts also have been expecting Sony, Japan`s second-largest consumer electronics maker after Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., to invest in new production capacity to secure panels for its new line-up of Bravia brand LCD TVs, which have been grabbing market share in the U.S. and Japan.

S-LCD will build an "eighth-generation" LCD line that uses a motherglass size of approximately 2.2-by-2.5 meters, the companies said. The new line will begin mass production in the autumn of 2007 and have a production capacity of 50,000 units per month.