Sanyo Goes Long Solar (SANYY)

Sanyo Electric Co (SANYY) announced it will make a 40 billion yen ($350m) investment in its solar cell business over the next four and a half years. Reuters cited a Sanyo spokesman who said solar sales totaled 47.5 billion ($413m) yen for the fiscal year ended March '06. Sanyo plans to boost that figure to 180 billion yen ($1.57b) by the end of 2010.

In its press release currently only available in Japanese, Sanyo said it will begin its next-generation solar program with a 10 billion yen ($87m) investment in 2007. It plans to increase megawatt production capacity in 2007 to 210MW from 100MW with an additional 50MW coming from its Shimane-Sanyo subsidiary for a grand total of 260MW.

Sanyo wants to improve solar conversion efficiency of its solar cells from an expected level of 15-16% in 2007 to 18% by 2008 and to over 22% by 2010.

I will post a link to an English version of its press release once it becomes available.

Sanyo Electric Co ADR (SANYY) 1-year chart: