Leading TV producer Konka is seeking overseas partners while diversifying its products in the digital TV industry to reinforce its profitability.

Although it failed to fulfill its first overseas acquisition plan involving a large European home appliance company recently, Konka has already negotiated with other transnational corporations to purchase their TV manufacturing businesses, Kuang Yubin, general manager of Konka's multimedia department, told a press conference. He declined to name the possible partners.

"We are seeking overseas partners but not in a rush. We believe that more partnership opportunities are waiting for us ahead, because global markets are favourable to Chinese firms, especially Chinese TV makers," Kuang said.

Konka decided to abandon an acquisition plan involving Grundig, Germany's largest home appliance firm, a month ago upon the prudent consideration that the investment could not generate an apparent return to Konka in the short-to-medium term, he explained.

Grundig was finally bought by a joint venture by Turkish firm Beko and Britain's Alba.

Konka is expected to export 3 million color TV sets, or 30 percent of its projected 10 million units sales for this year, Kuang said. Last year, the company sold more than 7 million TV sets, of which about 15 percent were exported, according to company figures.

"We would like to triple our sales abroad by setting up overseas manufacturing bases and prudently carrying out overseas acquisition plans," Kuang said.

Currently, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Australia are Konka's major export markets, but it intended to expand its market shares in some developed markets including Europe and North America, a spokesman for the company told China Daily.

Apart from surging exports, about 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) will be invested to develop digital TV-related products in the next five years to solidify the company's profit, Konka officials announced.

It will set up a special research department to develop digital TV chips, and invite professionals from around the world to develop software for digital TV production.

(China Daily March 4, 2004)