BenQ, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, and Philips of the Netherlands have announced a joint venture to design, develop and sell computer CD and DVD disk drives.
Philips BenQ Digital Storage would aim to win about 15 per cent of the €8bn (£5.3bn) global market in optical storage disk drives within a year, company officials said. Philips and BenQ each currently account for less than 4 per cent of world sales.
Philips is to own 51 per cent of the venture, which will be launched in the next few months with initial capital of US$20m (£12.4m), while BenQ will take the remaining 49 per cent.
The deal follows an industry trend toward link-ups between Taiwanese manufacturers and overseas counterparts that has been accelerated by the global slump in demand for information technology products.
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