Kyocera Corp, the world's largest maker of ceramic packages to protect semiconductors, will share components and designs with its unprofitable handset unit in the US in a bid to cut costs, president Yasuo Nishiguchi said.
Kyocera Wireless Corp, formerly owned by Qualcomm Inc, will also share procurement and testing with the parent, Nishiguchi said in an interview.
The measures are part of Nishiguchi's bid to exert more control over San Diego-based Kyocera Wireless and AVX Corp, another unit in the US, in order to restore them to profit. The wireless unit has weighed on Kyocera's earnings since its purchase from Qualcomm for an undisclosed amount three years ago.
"There was clearly a need to bolster the US units," said Makoto Sakuma, who helps manage the equivalent of US$3.3 billion in assets including Kyocera shares at Asahi Life Asset Management Co.
Kyocera Wireless, which provides phones for US carrier Verizon Wireless Inc, had a loss of about ?2.7 billion (US$23 million) in the three months ended June, contributing to a 43 percent drop in Kyocera's operating profit to ?12.8 billion.
Nishiguchi has already begun to reorganize the company's US units. Tsuyoshi Mano, who joined Kyocera in 1978, this month took over as president and chief executive of Kyocera Wireless.
"The big failure was that KWC hasn't been incorporated into the Kyocera group," Nishiguchi said. "It will be from now on."
As the new management takes on the task, "there may be the need for further restructuring," which may include layoffs, he said.
Kyocera, which is also the maker of the SmartPhone and the largest Japanese producer of handsets that operate on Qualcomm's code-division multiple-access standard, last month dispatched five engineers to the unit to encourage cooperation, Nishiguchi said.
Saving costs is the aim. For example, the US unit is able to design handsets at about half of Kyocera's cost while the Japanese parent has a better quality control system, Nishiguchi said.
"I've made up my mind about the big picture," Nishiguchi said, adding that the changes, which will be announced by the end of the year, won't mirror Kyocera Wireless's reorganization.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
RSS