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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Softechie who wrote (8762)	2/25/2003 2:06:11 AM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95640

Some good news, Stan. Sharp to Spend More on Flat-Panel, Chip Production 02/25 01:47 By Kyoko Suzuki quote.bloomberg.com Osaka, Japan, Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Sharp Corp., Japan's biggest liquid-crystal display maker, will increase spending on equipment and new plants by about 13 percent to 500 billion yen ($4.2 billion) over the next three fiscal years to meet demand for parts used in cellular phones and digital cameras. The extra investment will boost output of flat screens and semiconductors, with the aim of increasing the company's sales at an annual 10 percent over the period, President Katsuhiko Machida told analysts last week in Tokyo. Cell-phone companies such as Vodafone Group Plc, the world's largest mobile-phone operator, are introducing handsets with color screens, built-in cameras and picture messaging to spur growth. Sharp expects almost half of all mobile phones this year to have color screens, up from about a tenth last year. The investment ``is small compared with what its rival LCD makers in Korea and Taiwan have planned,'' said Kun-Soo Lee, an analyst at West LB Securities Pacific Ltd. ``Raising capital spending won't necessarily mean more sales, market share or profit. The company needs to be selective about how it spends.'' Still, if the additional spending enables Sharp to mass produce its advanced LCD panels ``which is something no other maker can produce yet,. . . that would be a big enough reason to raise the company's investment ratings,'' said Lee, who rates the company a 'hold.' Such panels have better picture-display quality and it's easier to add more circuits onto them. Sharp, which was the world's first to introduce a mobile phone with a built-in camera, expects group sales of 2 trillion yen for the year ending March 31. New Factory Of the 500 billion yen it plans to spend, Sharp will invest 300 billion yen at its main liquid-crystal display business, with a third of that used to increase production of 2-inch and other small panels in the year ending March 2005 at a new factory in Mie Prefecture, Western Japan. The plant, which is scheduled to begin operating in June, will have monthly production capacity of 4 million 2-inch panels. Sharp plans to make about 18 million panels at the plant after about two years. Production of the new panels, which will be used in digital cameras and cell phones, began in October at a Sharp plant in Nara Prefecture at a monthly rate of 2.5 million units. At its chip business, the company plans to boost production of light-capturing chips known as charge-coupled devices and complementary metal-oxide semiconductors. By October, Sharp wants to be able to make 6 million such chips a month after doubling capacity to 4 million by March. Sharp will also by the end of September complete its shift to producing a flash memory chip with circuit features measuring 0.13 microns wide, currently the most advanced in the industry. Shareholdings Separately, the company told analysts it plans in the next five years to decrease shares outstanding from 1.1 billion as of Sept. 30 to 1 billion. Sharp also wants to attract more individual and foreign shareholders, boosting their overall stake to as much as 25 percent from less than 20 percent each. It also wants to decrease the stake held in the company by financial institutions to about 40 percent from 50 percent, Machida said. Sharp's 10 largest shareholders are Japanese banks or insurance companies. Its largest shareholder is Nippon Life Insurance, which held almost 5 percent as of March 31, according to Bloomberg data. To attract investors, the company wants to improve its return on equity from an expected 4.1 percent in the year ending March to 10 percent in the year ending March 2006, Machida said. Sharp's shares closed at 1,279 yen, down 0.5 percent, in trading on Japanese exchanges.