There was a very interesting article about the Olevia brand of High Definition Televisions in yesterday’s New York Times. The company behind the brand, Syntax-Brillan Corporation sold almost $250 million dollars worth of HDTVs in the fourth quarter of 2006 alone.
One of the key reasons that the Olevia brand is successful in the U.S. consumer electronics market is because they capitalize on the huge number of LCD display panels available at the wholesale level. The number of factories in Asia that were built to manufacture these displays was far in excess of anticipated demand several years ago. Although the demand for HDTVs has soared in the last 12 to 24 months, most people looking at the industry still see an LCD display panel glut on which companies like Syntax-Brillan can capitalize:
{Vincent F. Sollitto Jr., Syntax-Brillan’s CEO} is essentially taking a ride on the falling prices of flat panels, the main component in the TVs, and the drop has steepened because of a glut. It owns no factories, but buys the panels and has contracts with four manufacturers to assemble the televisions. This keeps costs down but is risky because the company does not control the supply of parts.
It appears from this article that Syntax-Brillan is using this period of rapidly declining prices to attempt to establish Olevia as a name brand for HDTVs in the United States. This would allow them to compete more on features than on price in the future, if the availability of LCD panels is easy as it is now.
The Olevia brand is also greatly helped by the selection of its Olevia 542i 42-inch model as a Consumer Reports Best Buy in the 40-inch and larger LCD HDTV category. [ Free registration required to read most articles in The New York Times. Paid subscription required to read most articles in Consumer Reports. ]