As per reports by major digital camera makers, the annual shipments of digital cameras for the fiscal2012 ending March 2013 will further drop by 6 million units since their latest forecast unveiled. The reason cited is the fast dissemination of multi- functional smartphones.Canon has already closed its book for FY2012, ending in 26.5 million units, 1.3 million less than the … [Read more...]

Olympus Corp. aims to slash interest-bearing debt by around 100 billion yen (US$1.075 billion) as of March 31st next year, more than the 70 billion yen (US$752.7 million) in average annual cuts envisioned in a midterm business plan unveiled last June. The debt tally is slated to decline from an estimated 560 billion yen (US$6.02 billion) as of this March 31 to 460 billion … [Read more...]

Sharp Corp. has agreed to issue shares worth roughly 10 billion yen (US$108.7 million) to Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea to raise much-needed cash. The investment will give Samsung a roughly 3% stake in Sharp, effectively making it Sharp’s No. 5 shareholder overall and the largest, except for financial institutions.Sharp already supplies LCD panels for 32-inch TVs to … [Read more...]

Samsung SDI has replaced Panasonic in the Li-ion cell shipments volume ranking, to became the No.1 supplier in 2012. Samsung gained its share by 1.9 percentage points from the previous year to 25.1%, while Panasonic fell 2.8 points to 20.7%. LG Electronics followed at 16%, down 0.2 point and Sony 7.7%, a 0.8 point down. The share for smartphones increased steadily, … [Read more...]

Sony has sold “Sony City Osaki” building in Shinagawa to the Nippon Building Fund and other Japanese financial institutes, at 111.1 billion yen (US$1.23 B). The company will post a 41 billion yen (US$455.5 M) operational profit in the Jan-March 2013 quarter. Sony will rent the building for the next five years and will relocate in the future. This is one of its restructuring … [Read more...]