Hitachi Ltd, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Toshiba Corp., three of Japan's biggest electronics makers, are in talks to jointly produce liquid crystal displays (LCDs) used in television sets, the companies said.
"It is true we're in talks with Hitachi and Matsushita on LCD production," said Yasuo Mori-moto, a senior Toshiba executive vice president.
Hitachi's Yasuo Hirano, deputy director of corporate communication, said the company doesn't plan "to invest alone in LCD production for large television sets" and it "won't deny we're in talks on production with someone else."
Hitachi and Matsushita said they had reached a basic accord on an alliance aimed at challenging a joint venture between another major Japanese consumer electronics maker, Sony, and rival Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said yesterday..
Hitachi, Japan's largest electronics maker, and Matsushita, Japan's largest consumer electronics maker, together will invest ?100 billion (US$895 million) in an LCD factory to be built in Chiba, near Tokyo, in 2006, the Nihon Keizai reported.
That compares with the 2.1 trillion won (US$1.8 billion) that Samsung and Japan's Sony Corp said they will spend building a seventh-generation (7G) plant.
Hitachi, Matsushita and Toshiba need to work together to compete with larger rivals, as the LCD market is expected to expand about 73 percent this year.
Samsung Electronics and LG Philips LCD Co, the world's two biggest makers of LCDs geared for TVs and computer monitors, each has about triple the market share that the three Japanese companies have combined. Both are building new display factories.
"With Samsung coming out with seventh-generation plants, the Japanese LCD makers just don't have the costs to compete and have no choice but to work together," said Naoki Sato, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Japan.
Sato currently rates Hitachi as "underweight" and Toshiba "overweight."
A 7G plant can cut up eight 40-inch screens at a time, or double the number of a sixth-generation line.
Sato says "it's still not too late for the Japanese companies to make a presence in the market," as demand for large LCDs will continue to grow even after the Athens Olympics ends, because people are shifting away from cathode-ray tube televisions.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is