Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sony will buy LCD Production Equipment from Epson

Bloomberg.com has announced that Sony will buy equipment for manufacturing liquid-crystal displays from Seiko Epson Corp. The purchase will be part of an alliance between the Japanese electronics makers that will be formalized in a contract at the end of June.

Buying additional manufacturing capacity will enable Sony to expand market share as rival LCD makers including LG Display Co. and Sharp Corp. report losses and close factories. Epson, which widened its full-year loss forecast to a record on March 13, 2009, said it would be “difficult” to improve earnings from the business on its own as the global recession erodes demand for computers and mobile phones.

The two companies didn’t disclose purchase details in the statement, and Sony’s Kitsukawa didn’t give a price.

Seiko Epson said it will close an LCD plant central Japan by the end of September 2009 and concentrate output of the panels at its factory in Tottori prefecture, in the west of the country.

Japan’s largest maker of inkjet printers, Seiko Epson said it expects a record net loss of 100 billion yen ($1 billion) for the year ending March 31 because of costs to reorganize its flat-panel and semiconductor operations.

Source: www.bloomberg.com

Key words: Sony, Epson, agreement, LCDs

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