Big CRT flat screens do the biz for Samsung

Sales of larger-sized flat-screen monitors has helped Samsung SDI boost its profits by 59 per cent.

Net income for the three months to 30 September rose to 162 billion won ($142 million) from 102 billion won the same period last year. Sales increased 12 per cent to 1.05 trillion won ($920 million).

Samsung SDI makes the cathode ray tube (CRT) based display products for Samsung. It is enjoying good business from TVs with tubes longer than 25in and computer monitors longer than 17in horizontally.

TFT display technology was spun off to affiliate Samsung Electronics. Samsung SDI reckons CRT displays will make up 72 per cent of its sales until 2002 and only fall to half by 2005.

By 2005 SDI is forecasting the display industry will be worth $66 billion, with CRT making up $35 billion of the market and TFT LCD screens $23 billion.

Samsung Electronics is launching a 24in TFT monitor on 7 November.

NEC is back in profit in the first half thanks to rising sales of PCs, cell phones, and chips.

Net income was 20.5 billion yen ($189 million) for the six months to 30 September, compared with a loss of 51.2 billion yen ($472 million) for the period a year earlier. Profits from computers, software and services more than doubled to 29.8 billion yen. ®