General Electric partners with Tatung for "premium" GE-branded HDTVs

Who says there are too many players in the HDTV realm? With current mainstays partnering up like it's going out of style, we've found two firms that see something no one else does. General Electric has just announced a joint venture with Taiwan-based Tatung in which the pair plans on making two million HDTVs annually when production gets going in 2009. The two hope to capture at least 5% to 10% of the global TV market in due time, and according to Peter Weedfald, president of North America and global chief marketing officer for the JV, the resulting product will be a "premium brand" that will be "very competitive with current leadership brands." We'll be interested to see what all becomes of this, and hopefully we'll have some prototypes to gawk at come CES / IFA / CEDIA 2009.

[Image courtesy of VintageTVSets]

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 23rd 2008 3:50PM]

i'm planning a pedicure next week.

just thought i'd throw that out there

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 23rd 2008 4:48PM]

Number 1 - GE is NOT a high end TV brand....when they used to build HDTVs (or rebadge them from China or whatever) they were always loss leaders at Best Buy.

Number 2 - Tatung - also NOT a high end TV brand.

So how do they plan on achieving "premium positioning"? I'll be impressed if it works out.