Vestel was branded as Finlux at ISE. The company told us that it retains its focus on OEM business, but it owns the Finlux brand, which is widely recognised in Europe and so there is no licence cost to using it. Of course, the company is controlling the Toshiba TV brand in Europe these days, so we see this move as part of a move to get a bit more business with higher margins than the OEM business provides. At the show, there were four new ranges of digital signage and, as they had at BETT, the company highlighted to us that its digital signage systems have had significant functional upgrades such as auto restart etc. The UH-M series are all UltraHD and the PDM series can support portrait or landscape operation. Vestel also has 700 cd/m2 units available, now. Of course, the company has been showing OLED TVs for a while and has been experimenting with OLEDs for digital signage.
The company also has OPS compatibility now. A new product line was an LED display. However, we unable to ascertain whether the LED displays are being made in Turkey. We suspect that Finlux might be integrating units from China. It seems unlikely that the firm could be competitive, given the huge supply chain in China.
