NEC, Hitachi to Form Venture, Merge DRAM Business, Nikkei Says
Tokyo, Nov. 22 -- NEC Corp., Japan's largest maker of personal computers and chips, and Hitachi Ltd., the country's largest electronics maker, will merge their dynamic random-access memory chip businesses, creating an alliance with a 25 percent global market share, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said, without citing sources. As a first step, the two companies will form a joint venture next month to design computer chips. The venture, which will take over the two companies' DRAM production divisions in 2001, will also build a plant in Japan with an investment of 150 billion yen ($1.4 billion), the report said.
Hitachi said last month it targets an almost sevenfold increase in earnings and a 21 percent increase in sales in the next three years as it strengthens its computer-related businesses.
(Nihon Keizai, front page)
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Nov/21/1999 18:04
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