Hardware
ò Sony replaced the head of its loss making television unit in its latest move to shore up the business, which has been buffeted by tumbling prices of flat-panel televisions. Takashi Fukuda stepped down as president of its TV business group after only a year in the job. He was replaced by Hiroshi Yoshioka, head of the companyÆs audio unit, effective April 1. Falling prices for flat-panel TVs have outpaced SonyÆs ability to cut manufacturing costs. The television unit incurred a $590.4 million loss in the six months up to the end of September and is expected to post a loss for the full fiscal year to the end of March. However, Sony said that it would probably meet its earnings forecast as cost cuts offset a stronger yen. According to the company, growth remains stable (despite the flatscreen tv price drops) and the company is maintaining its full-year forecasts given in January. Sony projected net income would more than double to Ñ340 billion ($3.3 billion) in the year ended March 31. Sony will cut costs and expand output in countries such as Slovakia to mitigate the impact of a stronger Japanese currency.
ò Fujitsu named SVP Kuniaki Nozoe as the new President of the company following a reshuffle in its businesses and attempts to reverse a profit decline. The management change comes as Fujitsu forecast a 60% drop in net profit this fiscal year to Ñ40 billion yen from Ñ102.4 billion. Fujitsu recently moved to distance itself from the expensive and competitive hardware business, saying in January that it would spin off its LSI chip operation. Kurokawa took the helm after Fujitsu suffered a net loss of Ñ122.1 billion in 2003. Prior to the company's expected profit drop this fiscal year, he led the company through a four-year recovery period, increasing its margins and focusing on profitable businesses.
ò Sharp Electronics Corp announced the appointment of Daisuke (Doug) Koshima as chairman and CEO, effective April 1, 2008. He replaced Toshihiko Fujimoto, who will be transferring to a new assignment as general manager for strategic planning with the international business group, Japan. Koshima has spent 37 years with Sharp.
Semiconductor
ò Tokyo Electron (TEL) has begun receiving orders from production fabs throughout the world for the Trias HP Ti, the company's latest 300mm metal CVD system. According to TEL, the Trias HP Ti (High Performance Ti) has the ability to deposit titanium (Ti) films over a wide temperature range, including temperatures that are significantly lower than those typically required by conventional Ti CVD reactors. The Trias HP Ti incorporates a proprietary showerhead gas dispersion system with optimised surface treatments to reduce particle-related film defects to the levels required for 32nm devices and beyond.
ò Sumco Corp is expanding production of wafers for solar cells. The company plans to increase output without undertaking any new capital spending. To that end, subsidiary Sumco Solar Corp, will begin full-scale mass production at a large furnace and increase production speed. To reduce wafer breaking and cracking and thus boost yields, the process of cutting ingots into pieces 150mm square and less than 200 microns thick will be improved.
ò Japan's Elpida Memory Inc is in talks with Taiwan's ProMOS Technologies Inc about bilateral cooperation. There are as yet no details to disclose about the plans to tie up. ELPIDA has long been a partner of Powerchip Semiconductor Corp. The two have established a joint venture in Taiwan, Rexchip Electronics Corp.
Korea
Telecommunications
ò KT Corp is joining Softbank in investing in new media content. Both companies are investing an initial 20 billion won ($20.5 million) each to form a new fund which is aimed at developing and securing new content. KT is looking for future profits from Internet Protocol TV, which offers television and interactive services via broadband. The new fund would be managed by Softbank Ventures Korea, which would participate in the financing of educational and entertainment programming and secure their commercial rights, with eye towards Internet and mobile TV.
ò LG Telecom may offer its 3G service on phones using Google's mobile software platform. The company plans to start selling a model running on Google's Android mobile phone operating system in late 2008 or early 2009. Samsung also hopes to have a Google phone in early 2009. Android phones are planned to be available first for 3G services based on GSM technology, although LG Telecom, which uses the rival CDMA standard, could eventually offer Android phones. LG, which has 18% of South Korea's 44 million mobile users, has lagged behind bigger rivals SK Telecom and in providing more profitable 3G services, such as video calls and wireless Internet.
Mobile/Wireless
ò Panasonic Mobile Communications announced it became the first mobile phone manufacturer to achieve a record delivery of 100 million units of mobile communication terminals to Japanese mobile phone carriers. These carriers include NTT DoCoMo, Inc, KDDI Corp and Softbank Mobile. Panasonic Mobile reached milestones of 10 million units in June 1997 and 50 million units in March 2001.
Semiconductors
ò Hynix Semiconductor plans to shut down a NAND flash-memory-chip fabrication line in the third quarter to reduce output amid an industry slump and falling chip prices. Also, a plan to launch NAND chip-volume production at a 12-inch fabrication line will likely be pushed to the third quarter. The new line will gradually be ramped up to have a monthly output capacity of more than 130,000 units of 12-inch wafers.
ò Samsung Semiconductor announced that it is now mass producing the lowest powered, highest density DDR2 memory available for servers. Samsung's new 2gb-based DDR2 DRAM offers up to a 50% reduction in power at 1.55 Voltage, which represents the best power performance for the highest density server memory today. Faced with these cost spikes, IT managers are looking to low-power memory as a key means of driving energy costs downward.
ò Yingli Green Energy (YGE) has signed sales contracts with Korea Electric Power Industrial Development Corporation (KEPID) and Kaycom Corp (Kaycom). Under the terms of the contracts, YGE will deliver 1.3 MW of PV modules to KEPID by the end of April 2008 and 2.0 MW of PV modules to Kaycom by the end of May 2008. The PV modules to be provided by the Company under these contracts will be installed in KEPIDÆs planned 1.8MW project in Naju.
Hardware
ò South Korean companies exported a total of $11.33 billion worth of digital goods last month, up 12.8% from the same period a year earlier, according to the report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. Imports of digital goods, meanwhile, came to $6.51 billion during the same month, up 13% from a year earlier, bringing the nation's trade surplus in the sector to $4.82 billion. March's export growth stemmed mostly from a sharp increase in overseas sales of mobile handsets which jumped 50.4% to $2.04 billion. Exports of home appliance goods and electronics parts including flat panels also grew 3.6% and 2.5% respectively last month to $1.27 billion and $5.23 billion. Semiconductor exports, however, plunged 8.3% over the same period to $2.94 billion as an industry-wide glut continued to weigh on global chip prices.
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