Sharp to shunt two telly factories
3,000 more jobs could be axed
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Ailing Japanese electronics giant Sharp is set to offload two of its manufacturing plants, shedding thousands more jobs than was originally feared, according to the latest reports from Tokyo.
Sharp plans to eventually sell two of its TV production plants in Mexico and China to Foxconn parent company Hon Hai, according to Japan’s Daily Yomiuri newspaper.
This would apparently result in 3,000 extra job losses on top of the 5,000 already announced by the under-fire firm earlier this month, amounting to about 12 per cent of Sharp’s global workforce.
It’s not a done deal yet, however, with Sharp claiming no final decision has yet been made over the future of the two plants.
Given its precarious financial position, however, it would seem to be a case of when and not if.
Net losses in the last quarter topped £1bn and even possible saviour, Taiwanese ODM Hon Hai, is now looking to renegotiate the level of its investment in the ailing Japanese firm.
It originally offered ¥66.9bn (£547m) for a 9.9 per cent share of Sharp and ¥66bn (£539.58m) for a 46.5 per cent stake in Sharp's joint venture TV business with Sony, but wants a cheaper stake now that Sharp’s shares have slumped.
The Japanese firm desperately needs the dough to pay off some of the ¥1.25 trillion worth of debt it has accumulated, although Taiwanese regulators will need to approve any proposals first.
Its grand plan to turn the company around includes placing more emphasis on services and “one-of-a-kind products” such as the IGZO TV, while offering regional offices more autonomy. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Dull/Sharp??
Jospeh Lord...... What planet are you from? Please explain why CRT's are flickery / inefficient / full of nasty chemicals with phosphors that fade with usage?
I think these days I'd rather have a CRT. I've had 3, yes THREE, LCD TV's all give up the ghost in some form or the other over the last 5 years. The latest is the 40" Samsung thats bearly 3 years old, and has succumbed to the tab bonding problem. Will Samsung replace the screen under Sales of Goods act? Will they balls.
And oh look, my 21 year old Philips CRT is STILL running as strong as the day it was bought. And the screen definition / contrast / colour is still perfect.
I've never seen a CRT flicker (unless its a poorly setup computer monitor), the 40" Samsung TV consumes about 225 Watts in operation, but granted, farting about with the backlight and brightness controls will pull that figure down, albeit making the picture quality a bit, erm, shite on SD TV channels.
The only nasty chemicals that are present in a CRT but not a LCD is probably the lead in the CRT itself, and a tiny bit of cadmium in the phospor. But, then again, recycled properly, the lead is removed and reused. And your average AA battery has more cadmium in than a CRT.
Oh - have you ever seen a CRT muncher in operation? An awesome sight!
However, try scraping those lovely chemicals from the inside of the glass backlight tubes used in MOST LCD's. Or maybe don't. Mercury is NOT your friend here.
And the liquid crystal in your average LCD screen? Don't be licking your fingers after getting that shit on your hands.
And in regards to TV's phosphor fading with usage? Unless its about 40 years old, been used continuously for that sort of time, and your example is something built in the 70's when colour was becoming established in the UK, then I rest my case.
Shall we come back in 20 years time and see if your LCD telly is still working?
Re: Dull/Sharp??
Why would you want to buy a large, heavy, low resolution, flickery, inefficient, full of nasty chemicals TV with curved reflective glass screen and phosphors that fade with usage?
The rose tinted view of CRTs some people have is getting ridiculous. Yes the lack of pixels with hard boundaries is a plus and the naturally interlaced display is the best way to view interlaced content but content is increasingly progressive and with FHD the pixel density can be high enough that the pixel shape doesn't matter too much.
I'm not saying that if you have a functioning CRT that you should get rid of it but the idea that we should be making more is ridiculous. If you do have a CRT you should realise that most content is likely to look better on a decent LCD with sensible set up. You VHS tapes may look worse but that is probably the case of the CRT hiding the flaws better while the LCD will show you the problems in the source.
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