Sony Corp. has joined hands with Sharp Corp. to manufacture LCD panels.
In a press conference held at the Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa in Tokyo on the afternoon of February 26, Sony’s President Chubachi and Sharp’s President Katayama disclosed that the two corporations will establish a joint venture company for manufacturing LCD panels. They exchanged a letter of intent for the joint venture establishment on this day.
Sony plans to contribute 34 percent of the total investment for setting up a joint venture company which will be tasked to operate a new plant currently under construction in Sakai, Osaka while Sharp will undertake the remaining 66 percent. Though the exact amount of money that Sony will put in the project has yet been settled, it is projected at above 100 billion yen (about 926 million US dollar).
Construction of the new plant with monthly production capacity of 72,000 LCD panel units is to be completed in April 2009 and will start operation before the end of next year.
Sony which had mainly purchased LCD panels from S-LCD -- a joint venture between Sony and Samsung Electronics -- recently decided to cooperate with Sharp in LCD panel production.
With the new partnership with Sharp, Sony whose LCD TV output as of the end of last year was the world’s second largest is now deemed to have Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading LCD TV manufacturer, at vantage.
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