Shares in Mitsubishi Materials Corp yesterday plunged more than 8 percent after it admitted to falsifying product data, the latest major Japanese firm to acknowledge problems with quality control.
Stock in the Nikkei-225-listed firm was down ￥330 (8.06 percent) to close at ￥3,760, with the wider market fractionally in the green.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index gained 0.12 percent, or 27.70 points, to close at 22,550.85. Over the week, the index rose 0.69 percent.
The broader TOPIX added 0.20 percent, or 3.48 points, to 1,780.56, gaining 0.95 percent from last Friday.
Company president Akira Takeuchi was due to brief reporters on the scandal after the market close.
The affected products included rubber sealing materials used for packing and gaskets, often used to prevent leaks of liquid or gas from pipes in a wide variety of industries including aerospace and automobiles, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
The scandal also affected brass strip products for cars and other products, the company said.
Mitsubishi Materials’ subsidiaries falsified specification data before shipping some of its products to clients, the company said, adding that it is working with affected clients to ensure product safety.
The admission came after Japanese consumers saw a series of quality control and governance lapses at major firms including Kobe Steel Ltd, Nissan Motor Co and Subaru Corp.
Kobe Steel has admitted falsifying strength and quality data for products shipped to hundreds of clients, from automakers to plane manufacturers.
Nissan recalled some 1.2 million vehicles after admitting last month that staff without proper authorization had conducted final inspections on some vehicles intended for the domestic market.
Subaru recalled nearly 400,000 vehicles from its domestic market after admitting it also allowed uncertified staff to conduct inspections.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
RSS