GUANGZHOU: Cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions are going out of date in China as yet another big foreign TV maker declared that it will concentrate on the high-end TV market.

Korean electronics giant Samsung said it will stop selling CRT TVs in China within this year and focus on selling digital light processing (DLP) televisions in the future.

"Prices of domestic-made CRT televisions are much lower than Samsung's," Kim Sang Gyun, general manager of Samsung Electronics Guangzhou Company, told China Daily. "The sales volume of Samsung's CRT televisions only made up 5 per cent of the company's total income in China last year."

"That is one of the reasons why we decided to withdraw the products from the Chinese market," Kim said.

Sanyo and Sharp also declared they would stop selling CRT televisions earlier this year.

Kim said Samsung would not stop manufacturing CRT televisions in China, but all the products will be exported.

Kim said the other reason behind the decision is that the company is trying its best to capture the high-end market in China.

"Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and DLP large screen televisions are turning into our major products," he said.

With supply of chips from Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung started to manufacture DLP big screen televisions several years ago, and the products were marketed in China from the end of 2004.

Kim said China's demand for televisions is huge, amounting to 20 million every year. Among them, 80,000 to 100,000 are DLP TVs.

At present, few television makers are selling DLP TVs in China. Samsung sees this as a great chance to occupy as big a market share as possible, he said.

Samsung has set a target to become the biggest supplier of LCD and DLP televisions in the Chinese market within this year.

Samsung's LCD and DLP products now take up a market share of 20 per cent, ranking second.

"The first is Sony, whose market share is 25 per cent," Kim said. "But we hare confidence to exceed Sony and achieve 30 per cent at the end of this year."

Samsung and Sony have been in a price war since July, Kim said.

The 50-inch DLP television was sold at 24,000 yuan (US$2,959) when it was first introduced to China last year. Samsung dropped its price to 20,000 yuan (US$2,466) last month, following Sony's reduction in price, Kim said. And he said the price war will go on.

In collaboration with TI, Samsung is on a promotion campaign for its DLP televisions, which started from August 12 and will last for a month.

The promotion covers major cities in South China's Guangdong Province and East China's Fujian Province.

"We hope the promotion will help Samsung win more customers," Kim said.

(HK Edition 08/31/2005 page3)