Sharp Corp will promote executive vice president Kozo Takahashi to president, replacing Takashi Okuda, the Nikkei Shimbun reported.
Okuda, who became president in April last year, will replace Mikio Katayama as chairman, the newspaper said.
Sharp was not the source of the information, said Miyuki Nakayama, a spokeswoman at the Osaka-based company.
Photo: AFP
Okuda, 59, has sold company assets and mortgaged its headquarters to raise funds after losses on TVs and LCDs drove Sharp to a record ¥376 billion (US$3.7 billion) net loss in the year that ended in March last year.
Takahashi, 58, is currently in charge of the company’s products business group, which includes TV sets and mobile phones.
Sharp was scheduled to report earnings yesterday for the year tht ended on March 31. The company is forecasting a record loss of ¥450 billion.
Sharp’s shares gained 12 percent to close at ¥506 in Tokyo trading yesterday, extending gains to 58 percent over the past six trading days. The shares plunged 55 percent last year.
Takahashi joined Sharp in April 1980 and previously headed the health and environmental products division as well as the company’s US operations, according to company filings.
Sharp, which has ¥200 billion of convertible bonds due this year and ¥360 billion of loans due on June 30, has been seeking investments from rivals and selling assets as its cash pile shrinks.
Sharp sold ¥10.4 billion of shares to Samsung Electronics Co, Asia’s largest electronics maker, in March.
Okuda said on Feb. 1 that the company aims to post net income in the year ending March next year. Sharp estimated operating profit will reach ¥13.8 billion in the six months to March 31, rebounding from a 168.9 billion loss in the first half.
Separately, Panasonic Corp’s shares surged the most in three months after an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG estimated declines in the Japanese currency may add as much as ¥30 billion to earnings this year.
Japan’s second-largest television maker rose 7.6 percent to close at ¥806, the biggest gain since Feb. 4. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 1.2 percent.
Panasonic last week forecast net income of ¥50 billion in the 12 months ending March, compared with a loss of ¥754 billion a year earlier, as the maker of Lumix cameras restructures to revive profit from TVs and semiconductors. The Osaka-based company based its projection on an exchange rate of ¥85 per US dollar, compared with ¥101.94 at 10:41am.
“The current forex rates imply an upside of ¥30 billion,” Shunsuke Tsuchiya, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo who recommends buying the stock, said in a report to clients.
Sony Corp, Japan’s biggest TV maker, rose as much as 6.8 percent while Sharp, the third-largest, jumped as much as 16 percent.
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are
KEY TECHNOLOGY: South Korea’s semiconductor exports reached US$11.7 billion in March, and the chip sector accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s total exports South Korea would set up an aid package worth more than US$7 billion to support its chip industry, the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance said yesterday. This initiative follows its pledge last year to build the world’s largest chip center using US$240 billion of private investment, primarily from Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s largest memorychip maker, as it seeks an edge in the global industry. Seoul “is preparing an assistance package of more than 10 trillion won (US$7.3 billion) to support fabless, chips materials and manufacturing equipment in all areas of chips industry,” South Korean Minister of Economy and Finance