Fujitsu Ltd will buy control of Toshiba Corp’s mobile phone business and form a venture to vie with Sharp Corp for the top position in Japan’s shrinking handset market.
The new business will probably be profitable in its first year and aims for annual sales of 7.5 million handsets in the year ending March 2012, 14 percent more than their current combined sales, Fujitsu spokesman Masao Sakamoto said.
Fujitsu will own most of the venture, which starts on Oct. 1, the two companies said in a statement yesterday.
Japan’s cellphone makers are consolidating as demand drops and rivals, including Samsung Electronics Co, have deterred them from expanding overseas by providing cheap, simple handsets in fast-growing markets like China. Apple Inc has pulled away customers at home with its iPhone.
The acquisition may expand the market for Fujitsu to include Toshiba customers KDDI Corp, the No. 2 mobile carrier, and Softbank Corp, the next biggest. Fujitsu has exclusively supplied phones to the biggest wireless provider, NTT DoCoMo Inc.
Fujitsu’s cellphone unit, which provides handsets to the domestic wireless leader, has been profitable for the last five years, Sakamoto said.
NEC Corp., Japan’s biggest maker of personal computers, merged its phone unit with those of Hitachi Ltd and Casio Computer Co earlier this month.
Toshiba’s handset unit, which stopped domestic production last year, has lost money two years in a row, spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said.
Toshiba will transfer 360 engineers to the new venture, he said.
The final agreement between Fujitsu and Toshiba will be made by the end of next month, according to the statement. The two Tokyo-based companies don’t disclose the financial results from their handset businesses.
Japan’s mobile phone market is shrinking as the country’s population declines and wage stagnation limits consumer spending. Mobile phone shipments in the country fell 12 percent last year after shrinking 30 percent in 2008, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association.
Fujitsu accounted for 15 percent of mobile phone shipments during the 12 months through March, while Toshiba had 3.7 percent, Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd said.
Sharp Corp was the top producer with a 26 percent share, according to the Tokyo-based research firm’s estimates.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
‘BOOMING’: ’ The number of partners we have here is incredible. You can see from their stock prices. They’re doing so well, they’re so happy,’ Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp’s spending in Taiwan has ballooned to about US$150 billion a year, 10 times the US$10 billion to US$15 billion the company spent five years ago, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, suggesting Taiwan’s strategic importance in the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. “Taiwan is the epicenter of the AI revolution. This is where the chips come, packaging comes. This is where the systems are made. This is where AI supercomputers were created,” Huang said at a meeting for the company’s employees in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei, the planned site of Nvidia’s Taipei headquarters. “Taiwan
GREATER REACH? Auto parts and wood products would face tariffs of up to 15%, matching those targeting the EU, Japan and South Korea, Vice Premier said The US has announced that preferential tariff treatment for Taiwan’s non-semiconductor Section 232 goods would take effect retroactively from May 1, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The US government yesterday posted a notice on the Federal Register’s public inspection Web site previewing tariff concessions for Taiwan under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Taiwan-US investment after two months of negotiations. The MOU signed on Jan. 15 stipulated three major preferential tariff arrangements: a 15 percent “reciprocal” tariff rate for Taiwan without stacking most-favored nation (MFN) rates; preferential Section 232 treatment for semiconductors and related products; and preferential Section 232 treatment for non-semiconductor
RSS