WIRE REPORTS

Hitachi GST Ships the Industry's First 25-Nanometer SLC NAND Flash Enterprise ... MarketWatch (press release) Hitachi, Ltd., , headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 360000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2010 (ended March 31, 2011) consolidated revenues totaled 9315 billion yen ($112.2 billion). and more » Japan firms talk on system chip tie in reform drive -sources Reuters Renesas, itself the product of successive mergers of the chip divisions of Hitachi Ltd, Mitsubishi Electric and NEC Corp, reported an operating loss of 33.2 billion yen ($430 million) for the nine months to Dec. 31. Elpida, set up to take over the ... and more » Renesas, Fujitsu, Panasonic In Talks To Integrate System Chip Development Ops ... Wall Street Journal TO) and Hitachi Ltd. (6501.TO) signed a contract to integrate their businesses of making small-to-midsize display panels commonly used in smartphones and tablet computers. Japan's broader semiconductor sector has been under intense pressure. and more » Renesas, Fujitsu, Panasonic Discuss Chip Tie-Up Wall Street Journal In November, Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. signed a contract to integrate their businesses of making small-to-midsize display panels commonly used in smartphones and tablet computers. Japan's broader semiconductor sector has been under ... and more » Opnext Reports Third Fiscal Quarter Unaudited Operating Results TheStreet.com (press release) Cisco Systems, Inc. and Hitachi, Ltd. each represented 10% or more of total revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2011 and combined represented 43% of total revenue. Gross margin of 3.8% was down 16.3 percentage points sequentially and down 16.2 ... and more » Opnext Reports Third Fiscal Quarter Unaudited Operating Results MarketWatch (press release) Cisco Systems, Inc. and Hitachi, Ltd. each represented 10% or more of total revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2011 and combined represented 43% of total revenue. -- Gross margin of 3.8% was down 16.3 percentage points sequentially and down ... and more » Emerson In-Line, Optimistic Guidance Daily Markets (blog) Founded in St. Louis in 1890, Emerson is the largest publicly traded company in Missouri. The major competitors of Emerson are ABB Ltd. (NYSE:ABB), General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE) and Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE:HIT). and more » Emerson In-Line, Optimistic Guidance Zacks.com ... Emerson is the largest publicly traded company in Missouri. The major competitors of Emerson are ABB Ltd. (ABB), General Electric Co. (GE) and Hitachi Ltd. (HIT). The company has a Zacks #4 Rank which implies a short-term 'Sell' recommendation. and more » As Japan's Tech Sector Struggles, the Winner is?Hitachi? Wall Street Journal (blog) But Hitachi Ltd. stood out from its peers: In an industry wracked by overcapacity, the strong yen and cheaper competition it didn't cut its net profit outlook, sticking to a forecast of Y200 billion this fiscal year, which would be a 16% drop from a ... and more » World stock markets fall ahead of US jobs report Las Vegas Sun Japan's Hitachi Ltd. jumped 7.5 percent after the electronics maker maintained its earlier earnings projection for the business year to March 31. But Singapore Airlines fell 3.6 percent a day after announcing that quarterly profit plunged 53 percent as ... and more »

DAILY REPORTS

Feb 7 As Japan's tech sector struggles, the winner is... Hitachi? Sony Corp., Panasonic Corp. and Sharp Corp. all said last week that they now forecast hundreds of billions of yen in net losses for the current fiscal year through March. Toshiba Corp.'s outlook was much brighter: It only expects net profit to tumble 53%. But Hitachi Ltd. stood out from its peers: In an industry wracked by overcapacity, the strong yen and cheaper competition it didn't cut its net profit outlook, sticking to a forecast of Y200 billion this fiscal year, which would be a 16% drop from a year earlier. It wasn't always like this. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Hitachi, whose operations span everything from consumer electronics to electric power infrastructure, posted an eye-popping Y787.34 billion net loss for the fiscal year through March 2009 - over $10 billion at current exchange rates and the biggest loss ever reported by a Japanese manufacturer. (If Panasonic's loss forecast of Y780 billion for this fiscal year proves accurate, it would be the second biggest after Hitachi's 2009 figure.) (Wall Street Journal) Feb 3 Hitachi to reorganize business structure Hitachi Ltd said on Friday it would reorganize its operational structure in April by setting up five new groups as the Japanese conglomerate continues to overhaul its sprawling operations to boost profitability. The nation's biggest industrial electronics company has been revamping its empire of some 900 firms after it reported one of the biggest losses in Japanese corporate history only three years ago under the weight of a high-cost structure and lack of operational focus. Hitachi bounced back from those losses and has been a rare bright spot among its peers during the current earnings season, with its shares jumping more than 7 percent on Friday after it maintained its full-year profit outlook, in contrast to other electronics makers that have forecast massive annual losses. (Reuters) Feb 2 Trading suspended in 241 issues in Tokyo on glitch The Tokyo Stock Exchange says it has suspended trading in 241 securities, including Sony Corp. and Hitachi Ltd., due to a glitch in its electronic trading system. The problem was not affecting other issues on the exchange, which handles nearly 2,500 stocks and other financial instruments, exchange officials said. The Nikkei 225 index was up 68.73 points, or 0.8 percent, at 8,878.47 in midmorning trading. Stock exchange officials said they discovered the problem before trading opened at 9 a.m. and technical staff are working to correct it. (AP) Jan 30 TV makers see shakeout approaching The halcyon days of Japan's TV makers are long over. Now the business has become a drag on the earnings of the nation's electronics giants. TV demand shrank fast after consumers rushed out to buy digital TVs before broadcasts turned digital last year, making older analog models unusable without satellite or cable TV services. "The prices of flat-screen TVs are falling rapidly," an official with a major home electronics store in Tokyo said. "Customers have become choosy because they are comparison shopping." Hitachi Ltd., which has made TVs since 1956, said this month that it will cease production and outsource the work to foreign manufacturers instead. (Japan Times) Jan 23 Hitachi to outsource flat-screen TVs Hitachi Ltd. said Monday it will end in-house production of flat-screen TVs by the end of September and outsource them to foreign manufacturers as it downsizes its TV business. The major electronics company, which began TV production in 1956, plans to transfer TV output to Taiwan and China to cut costs and up its profit structure. Nevertheless, the firm will keep the Hitachi brand name and continue engaging in TV operations, including development and sales, it said. (Japan Times) Jan 15 Electronics giants turn to smart cities Hitachi, Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and other major electronics makers are increasingly turning their sights toward "smart city" projects designed to create eco-friendly, energy-efficient communities. In the wake of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, smart cities are considered to be a crucial part of the government's energy-saving policy. Such projects are already under way overseas, particularly in urban developments in newly emerging economies. Foreign electronics companies, including General Electric Co. of the United States, are also gearing up to enter the smart city market, intensifying competition for orders. (Yomiuri) Jan 11 Domains with .tokyo could be available next year From next year, Internet users may be able to have domain names ending with .tokyo, .sendai or .canon in e-mails and Web sites, according to sources. At least five local governments and two Japanese companies--Canon Inc. and Hitachi Ltd.--have indicated they plan to register their names for top-level domains under a plan to massively increase the number of available domains on the Internet. Domains are a set of Internet addresses that come after an "@" mark. The ones installed in the root zone of e-mail and website addresses are called top-level domains. There are only 22 top-level domain categories, including one for countries, such as Japan's .jp. Companies typically use the .com category, while .org is for nonprofit organizations. In 2008, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a U.S. nonprofit organization that manages domains across the globe, decided to liberalize the usage of top-level domains. It will begin receiving applications for the new domains from Thursday to April and then examine whether it will allow them to be registered ahead of their expected use next year. (Yomiuri) Jan 3 New semiconductors in the works / Japanese manufacturers to develop next-generation power-saving devices Major electronic IT manufacturers including Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd. and NEC Corp., plan to jointly develop next-generation semiconductors that will operate with one-tenth of the power consumed by present-day devices, it has been learned. Next-generation semiconductors will allow the transfer of greater amounts of data while at the same time enable a reduction in the size of IT-equipment and their power use. The manufacturers hope to have the semiconductors available in fiscal 2019 and they anticipate the devices will be used widely at businesses including call centers that offer cloud computing services, as well as in products such as personal computers. (Yomiuri) Dec 5 Hitachi delays sale of HDD unit again Hitachi Ltd. said Monday it has again postponed the sale of its U.S. hard-disk drive-making unit to a U.S. company because the European Commission is taking more time than expected to screen the deal. The sale of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Ltd. to Western Digital Corp. had previously been postponed from the end of September to sometime in the October-December quarter. The fresh postponement will have little impact on earnings, the company said. (Japan Times) Nov 1 Hitachi's profit plunges 67.8% Hitachi Ltd. said Tuesday its group net profit for the April-September period dropped 67.8 percent from a year earlier to ¥50.95 billion, hit chiefly by supply chain disruptions and damage caused by the March 11 disaster. Its group operating profit fell 21.8 percent from a year earlier to ¥170.61 billion on consolidated sales of ¥4.57 trillion, up 1.6 percent, the electrical machinery maker said. (Japan Times) Aug 30 Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi plan LCD venture for cellphones, tablets Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. have largely agreed to integrate their operations for small and midsize liquid crystal display panels for mobile and tablet devices such as smartphones, sources said Tuesday. The three manufacturers are expected to formally announce as early as Wednesday the planned establishment of a new firm that would control a world-leading share of more than 20 percent of the global LCD panel market. (Japan Times) Aug 5 Sony mulls strategy to rebuild TV business Sony Corp. Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai says the company will draw up a plan as soon as this month to rebuild its money-losing television business. Rebuilding the TV business is "the biggest and critical issue," Hirai said Thursday. Hirai was speaking a day after Hitachi Ltd. announced it plans to stop making TVs by March and instead outsource production abroad, in response to cutthroat price competition with South Korean and other rivals. (Japan Times) Aug 5 Analysis: Japan Inc could lose out as Hitachi-Mitsubishi Heavy The crumbling of mega-merger talks between Japanese industrial behemoths Hitachi (6501.T) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.T) threatens a rare opportunity for Japan to improve its global competitiveness by consolidating century-old companies. Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy are ready to walk away from talks that would have created an industrial giant with more than $150 billion in sales, sources told Reuters on Friday, after preliminary discussions were thrown suddenly into the media spotlight and the companies turned cautious. Traditionally seen as a last resort of failing firms, Japanese companies until recently have largely avoided strategic mergers. (Reuters) Jul 27 Train crash could slow business / China's rail sector has been a market for Japanese industrial firms The deadly high-speed train crash and derailment in China on Saturday is expected to lead to a delay or scaling-down of the country's large-scale railway projects. Meanwhile, it will inevitably affect Japanese businesses that have seen the fast-growing Chinese rail network as a big business opportunity. The train in the latest accident is the CRH2 model. It is modeled on bullet train technology that a consortium of Japanese companies--including Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Hitachi, Ltd., and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.--offered to China's state-run company China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp., or CSR. (Yomiuri) Jul 21 Hitachi maintains reactor sales goal despite nuclear crisis fallout After reviewing the business outlook for atomic power amid the Fukushima plant disaster, Hitachi Ltd. has decided to keep its nuclear business development plan and aims to land orders for more than 38 reactors from around the world by 2030, a top company executive said. "Nuclear plants are globally important electricity sources," Tatsuro Ishizuka, a vice president and executive officer, said in a recent interview. "We would like to further improve the safety of nuclear plants and promote them as a key business pillar." (Japan Times) Jul 11 Hitachi, LG eye water infrastructure Hitachi Ltd. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. will undertake water infrastructure projects in emerging countries through a joint venture to be formed in October, the Japanese company said Monday. The venture, LG-Hitachi Water Solutions Co., will initially make and sell equipment to treat effluent water for industrial plants in South Korea and consider expanding the business in other parts of Asia and the Middle East. (Japan Times) Jun 30 Hitachi may join LCD tieup Hitachi Ltd. is considering joining negotiations under way between Toshiba Corp. and Sony Corp. to integrate their businesses in small and midsize liquid crystal display panels, sources close to the deal said Thursday. The integration would give the three more than 20 percent of the global market share, surpassing Sharp Corp. to become the world's leader in the industry. Hoping to boost their international competitiveness amid the rapid growth in demand for LCDs in mobile devices such as smartphones, the three firms may reach an agreement as early as next month, the sources said. (Japan Times) Jun 15 'Green curtains' surge in face of power shortage Sales of "Green curtain" gardening kits are surging, shoppers are buying clothes designed to help them stay cool and a pizzeria owner is losing weight as Tokyo residents brace for a summer with less air conditioning. Sales of gear to grow "goya" gourd vines that provide shade for buildings have jumped ninefold this year at Rakuten Inc., the nation's largest online retailer. Hitachi Ltd., the country's second-biggest private employer, is draping factories with the bitter gourd plants and handing out seeds to employees for use at home, a step electronic components maker Kyocera Corp. is also taking. (Japan Times) [ More... ]