Japanese Tech Stock Weekly Summary

The following is excerpted from IRG's weekly stock report:

Hardware

• Toshiba (TOSBF.PK) expects to lose 110 billion yen (US$1.1billion) this year on its now defunct HD-DVD business. Toshiba lowered its net profit estimate for the year ending March 31 by 31 percent to 125 billion yen (US$1.3 billion), to reflect the HD-DVD loss as well as plunging prices for Nand flash memory chips, another of its core products. The company announced last month that it would stop manufacturing HD-DVD discs and players at end of March, leaving the field to Sony’s (SNE) Blu-ray format and it had already expected the business to lose 50 billion yen (US$500 million) due to falling prices for HD-DVD players. Prices have sunk further since it announced the format’s demise, and the company now expects an expanded operating loss of 65 billion yen (US$650 million). It would also take a 45 billion yen (US$450 million) charge to account for the depreciation of obsolete manufacturing equipment and the scrapping of piled up inventory.

• The next update of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 console will include features that let users download games, video and ring tones. The system update will add Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, or BD-Live, capability, to the PS3. It will also let users copy photos and music playlists on to their hand held PlayStation Portable, use the PSP as a remote control for playing music on the PS3, and stream linked video files from the Web. This will make the PS3 the first Blu-ray player with access to Internet content and downloads. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (MC), which owns the Panasonic brand, also plans to ship a BD-Live player this spring. The downloadable content will range from bonus movie scenes and trailers to interactive movie based games. With Blu-ray established as the high definition optical disc standard, more consumers are ready to jump in and take advantage of everything the format offers. The free update also adds a "resume play" feature that enables users to restart Blu-ray discs and DVDs at the point where they stopped even if they take the disk out of the drive.

• Fujifilm Dimatix, a producer of inkjet printheads for industrial applications, has announced that its cartridge-based Dimatix materials printer has been used in the world's first known demonstration of inkjet technology for manufacturing photovoltaic solar cells. Konarka Technologies demonstrated the use of inkjet technology to fabricate solar energy cells. The firm has earlier developed and commercialized Power Plastic, a material that converts light to energy. The demonstration confirms that organic solar cells can be processed with printing technologies with little or no loss compared to clean room semiconductor technologies such as spin coating. Inkjet technology is very promising for fabricating photovoltaics because it is compatible with various substrates and it does not require additional patterning. The materials printer is reported to be a turnkey, bench-top materials deposition system that leverages Fujifilm's Dimatix ink jet technology and its Shaped Piezo Silicon microelectromechanical fabrication processes in depositing picoliter-sized droplets of functional fluids on all types of surfaces.

Mobile/ Wireless

• KDDI Corp said it would recall some 214,000 mobile phones that may overheat and blow up, after several people were injured. KDDI, known for its “au” brand, will replace battery packs of its W42K model, marketed only in Japan. The firm received 13 complaints from users of the cell phone made by Kyocera Corp (KYO) about the trouble. Three of them suffered slight burns. The problem lies in the battery packs, which may short-circuit, generate smoke and blow up if their surface is damaged.

• Kyocera Corp. planned to stop using NEC Tokin Corp batteries in the future after some ruptured or caught fire, injuring three people. Kyocera planned to cut future battery orders from NEC Tokin and procure more batteries from Sanyo Electric Co (SANYY.PK), which now supplies roughly 80 percent of Kyocera's cellphone batteries. Overheating batteries are hurting cellphone suppliers, even as handset makers press them to lower battery costs. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co is shouldering in the year ending this month the cost of replacing 46 million batteries it made for Nokia (NOK).

Semiconductor

• NEC Electronics Corp. (NELTY.PK) will spend 2 billion yen (US$20.1 million) to increase its production of automotive semiconductors in Japan. The chip making unit of NEC Corp. will build facilities at its unit in Oita, in western Japan, that are scheduled for completion in December. The company is stepping up efforts to meet increasing demand for semiconductors used in automobiles.

• Perry Capital has taken a small stake in NEC (NIPNY), underlining the U.S. investment fund’s determination to increase pressure NEC Electronics. The stake, less than 5 percent, will allow the U.S. fund to take its grievances directly to the parent company, which controls more than 70 percent of NEC Electronics, its listed subsidiary. Perry has a 6 percent stake in NEC Electronics. NEC rejected an offer from Perry in July to buy 25 percent of NEC Electronics for 154.4 billion yen (US$1.5billion), or 5,000 yen (US$50.4) a share. NEC Electronics’ shares closed at 1,950 yen (US$19.7). The electronics group has refused to meet Perry while NEC Electronics, expecting to report its third year of losses in the year to the end of March, has refused to disclose information regarding its transactions with NEC. Perry’s move comes as other investors, in an attempt to improve investor returns, have stepped up efforts to engage with the Japanese companies in which they invest.

Telecommunications

• The two regional fixed-line units of Japan' NTT Group (NTT) are expected to comply with a request from the Communications Ministry to reduce the fees they charge other telecom firms to access their fiber-optic lines further. The two NTT companies are to submit applications that would lower the connection fee to about 4,600 yen (US$46.00) per month for NTT East, down roughly 10 percent from the current rate, and to about 4,950 yen (US$50.00) for NTT West, a reduction of around 2.5 percent. NTT East and NTT West both proposed in January more modest cuts to their connection fees, but a ministry telecoms panel recommended that the fees should be trimmed even more, saying that demand from competitors to access the lines may surpass the NTT firms' projections. The deeper cuts are based on higher demand projections. In return for complying with its request, the panel approved a special provision whereby if demand from other telecoms firms to access the lines is weaker than projections, the NTT firms can seek additional charges in fiscal 2011 and afterwards to cover their revenue shortfalls. Some of NTT's competitors, such as Softbank (SFTBF.PK), criticized the idea of leaving the door open to additional charges.

Information Technology

• Fujitsu (FJTSY.PK), a provider of IT and communications services, has completed an upgrade of the Japan-US Cable Network, a submarine fiber-optic cable system spanning the Pacific Ocean. Its technology allows the network to carry a capacity of more than 1.28 terabits per second (Tbps), doubling the original design capacity of 640Gbps, to support high-speed, high-capacity trans-Pacific communications. Fujitsu has replaced legacy optical communications equipment with its FLASHWAVE S650 series in six landing points, three each in the US and Japan. The submerged portion of the network remained unchanged.

Disclaimer: IRG is not responsible for the accuracy of the news compiled within this article, which is based on publicly available information.