Taiwanese LCD powers merge

Au Optronics has agreed to acquire Quanta Display, the LCD division of the contract manufacturing giant, in a stock swap. The merged company will likely have around 19 percent of the market, putting it third behind number two LG Philips and number one Samsung. Both LG and Samsung come out of South Korea.

The merger also brings to Taiwanese giants closer together. Au is a spin out from the Acer conglomerate, which makes a wide variety of hardware products. One of its chief competitors is Quanta, which makes more laptops than anyone else in the world. Most Quanta laptops, however, sport the brand of other manufacturers.

The two companies said that the deal could lead to further collaboration between the Quanta group and Acer subsidiaries or spin-offs such as BenQ, which makes consumer electronics.