Samsung Electronics will be sending its LCD TV OEM orders to Taiwanese companies TPV Technology and Qisda, in a bid to stay competitive in the LCD space as rumours of a price war with rival Sony gather pace.

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Although this is not the first time Samsung has approached Taiwanese LCD TV makers for manufacturing partnerships, no deals were made in the past as the Taiwanese makers did not meet the company’s stringent requirements.

However as global LCD TV shipments are expected to top 100 million units in 2008, all the branded players are aggressively pursuing competitive pricing to boost their market share, which has prompted the Korean electronics giant to approach the Taiwanese manufacturers again, according to reports from digitimes.com.

Under the deal, TPV will be responsible for making LCD TVs for markets in Europe, while Qisda will manufacture for the Asia Pacific region.  So now all top-five LCD TV branded vendors have established OEM partnerships with Taiwanese companies.

Among the major branded vendors, Sony is said to have outsourced new LCD TV models to Foxconn Electronics Wistron, which will be key products for the company this year.

And sources from the US have indicated that the first-tier branded LCD TV makers plan to activate a price war soon, with retail prices for 32-inch LCD TVs for example likely to decline to below $AUD 600.