The Impact of Convergence on the Competitiveness of the European Consumer Electronics Industry

Abstract

The companies that have their main "knowledge centre"-i.e. research and development laboratories-in the EU are indicated in italic. Many other companies, not included in the list above, compete on the European market on the basis of mostly imported products, such as personal computer makers from Taiwan or the USA. Especially important for the industrial structure in Europe are the suppliers of key components that determine the functionality of the product. This includes suppliers of integrated circuits-in particular, Philips, ST Microelectronics, Infineon (formerly Siemens)-and the large US and Japanese IC manufacturers with European production sites, and makers of display systems (Philips, Thomson), In addition to these large companies selling to the consumer, there are many more (usually smaller) companies that supply components and parts, or provide services to industrial players. Software is becoming an ever more important part of CE products. Most embedded software is developed by the product maker or under his control by smaller companies. Operating systems are in the hands of large (U.S.) companies, in particular Microsoft for desktop PCs, or owned by (consortia of) smaller ones, like the EPOC platform for personal organisers. Applications software comes from many companies, large and small alike.