ViewSonic Planning to Enter the Smartphone Business

Low-cost display maker ViewSonic has announced plans to get into the smartphone business...and its first target market will be China.

In the current economic climate, only a few sectors of the technology industry are still experiencing significant growth. On of those is the smartphone business, where—despite the tough economic times—consumers are increasingly eager to upgrade from basic phones to media- and Internet-capable smartphones that offer advanced features.

To that end, low-cost display maker ViewSonic, perhaps best known for its affordable flat-panel displays and photo frames—has announced it plans to enter the smartphone business, as part of its vision of being a player in the display business at sizes all the way from 3 to 300 inches. The company first plans to target the Chinese market, then migrate the products to Europe and North America.

“With 20 years of display experience this is a natural extension of our product expertise,” said ViewSonic chairman and CEO James Chu, in a statement. “This is an important strategic step for ViewSonic, as it allows us to apply our display technology to an even larger and rapidly growing worldwide market.”

The company has not revealed any technical details of the capabilities or operating systems of its planned smartphones, but industry watchers speculate ViewSonic is considering Symbian, Google Android, or an embedded Linux as a platform. ViewSonic itself hints that it plans to aim at media-centric applications, leveraging its display expertise to deliver compelling mobile visual content.

ViewSonic did not offer any timetable for when its smartphone offerings might be available.