Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), manufacturer of Apple Inc iPads and Hewlett-Packard Co computers, said it is in talks with Japan’s Sharp Corp to build a display panel factory in China’s Sichuan Province.
“We are examining the possibility of building a factory with Sharp in Chengdu to make LCDs,” Simon Hsing (邢治平), spokesman for Taipei-based Hon Hai, said yesterday. “We don’t have any firm plans yet.”
Both companies will invest in the factory with Osaka-based Sharp receiving “tens of billions of yen” in license fees from Hon Hai, Japan’s Nikkei Shimbun newspaper reported yesterday.
Sharp shares jumped 7.1 percent, the most since March 28, to close at ￥395 in Tokyo after the Nikkei report.
Hon Hai dropped 1.95 percent to NT$85.30 in Taipei trading.
“This is good news for Sharp,” Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Securities Co in Tokyo, said of the Nikkei report. “After a huge loss last fiscal year, it is seeking to make investments with limited risk.”
Sharp will also buy out Sony Corp’s 7.04 percent stake in their Sharp Display Products Corp venture, the two Japanese companies said after the close of trading.
Sharp, struggling to recover from its worst loss in a century, said on March 27 it would sell a stake in itself and in the display unit to Hon Hai, its affiliates and founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) for ￥133 billion (US$1.7 billion).
The company posted a ￥376 billion loss for the year ended on March 31, the worst since it was founded in 1912, amid falling TV prices, a strong yen that erodes the value of overseas sales and competition from South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co and LG Electronics Inc.
Sony said yesterday it would sell back all the stake it has held in Sharp Display Products since 2009. Sony will not lose any money as it will receive ￥10 billion, the same as it paid for shares in the Sharp subsidiary, which produces panels in Sakai, Japan.
Tokyo-based Sony, which racked up a record annual loss of ￥457 billion for the fiscal year ended in March, recently also ended its joint venture with Samsung Electronics Co to produce flat panels.
The decision to get out of panel-making comes as Sony seeks a turnaround under President Kazuo Hirai, appointed in February.
Sony officials say the company will simply start buying panels from manufacturers at good prices, and focus on Sony’s own imaging and other technology to differentiate its TVs from rivals.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
‘SEISMIC SHIFT’: The researcher forecast there would be about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior year and erasing years of gains The global smartphone market is expected to contract 12.9 percent this year due to the unprecedented memorychip shortage, marking “a crisis like no other,” researcher International Data Corp (IDC) said. The new forecast, a dramatic revision down from earlier estimates, gives the latest accounting of the ongoing memory crunch that is affecting every corner of the electronics industry. The demand for advanced memory to power artificial intelligence (AI) tasks has drained global supply until well into next year and jeopardizes the business model of many smartphone makers. IDC forecast about 1.1 billion mobile shipments this year, down from 1.26 billion the prior
People stand in a Pokemon store in Tokyo on Thursday. One of the world highest-grossing franchises is celebrated its 30th anniversary yesterday.
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS