Following the collapse of the digital consumer market in the
third quarter of 2008, Japanese chip-makers Toshiba, Sony and NEC
have reported depressed results for Q4 and gloomy outlooks for
2009. By contrast, Nintendo is perky on the back of its blockbuster
Wii.
The Japanese semiconductor market is expected to decline 15% cent
this year after the digital consumer market fell off a cliff in
Q308, according to Future Horizons. The same collapse happened
elsewhere in the world but in Japan, heavily dependent on consumer
electronics, it caused the most hurt.
Toshiba reported a loss of $1.76bn for Q408 and said it may make an
operating loss of $3bn for the year to the end of March. As well as
being hit by the collapsing digital consumer market, Toshiba was
hit by the oversupply and price slump in NAND flash where it is the
world No.2 after Samsung.
Sony reported a $200m loss for Q408 and said it would make a $2.9bn
loss for the year.
NEC reported a loss of $177m for Q408 and said it is expecting to
lose $723m for the full year.
The exception to the Japanese gloom is Nintendo which reported a
Q408 profit of $2.8bn and forecast a full year profit to the end of
March of $5.8bn.
“All the drivers for Japan’s domestic industry are in deep
trouble,” said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, earlier this
week, “two big users of semiconductors in Japan, the electric
machinery sector and automotive, are depressed. And Japan is losing
semiconductor market share in China.”
The Japanese semiconductor industry expects to lose a collective
$5.5bn in the year to the end of March 2009.
The effect will be to force further re-structuring on the Japanese
semiconductor industry which, according to Penn, “Has never really
re-structured.”
Currently Rohm is getting together with Oki, and Matsushita with
Sanyo. More such consolidation is expected this year.