Taiwanese monitor makers set to withdraw from UK market

Reports from Taiwan claimed today that a number of manufacturers are set to pull their monitor production out of the UK. The report, from the organisers of the Taiwanese Computex trade fair, said that Acer Peripherals, a world-class manufacturer, has changed its plans for manufacturing monitors in its Welsh plant and will move to making keyboards there instead. Meanwhile, ADI Corporation, which had planned to make monitors in a Northumberland plant, has also changed tack, while Lite-On, based in Scotland, now intends to change its centre to a services organisation. The reason is likely to be cost, with the manufacturers shifting production to plants in China, Mexico and Thailand. Said Bob Raikes, a senior display analyst at Meko UK: "The Acer development is certainly new." He pointed out that over 50 per cent of Taiwanese owned production was already "hollowed out" of Taiwan. Much of the production has gone to mainland China. Raikes pointed out that lead times for shipping monitors from the Far East to Europe were now lengthy. "If you ordered monitors now, you might get them delivered in December," he said. ®