Sharp Corporation, the only Japanese company that has been producing LCD panels for TVs, has finished production on Monday. This will put an end to production of LCD panels for TVs by Japanese companies, which had been lagging behind in competition between Korea and China.
Sharp said it halted production of large LCD panels in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, as of 4 p.m. on the same day, and announced that it would withdraw from large LCD manufacturing. LCD panel manufactured until the day will be closed by the end of March next year. Sharp’s LCD panel business has been cited as a major cause of massive losses for two consecutive years.
Japanese electronics giants such as Sharp led the LCD panel sector until the mid-2000s, but withdrew from the business one after another after another, losing out in competition with South Korea and China. Earlier, Sony sold all shares of its LCD manufacturing joint venture to Samsung Electronics in 2012, and Panasonic also ended production of LCD panels for TVs in 2016.
The Sakai plant, which Sharp built in 2009 at a cost of 430 billion yen, was similarly pushed out of competition with South Korea and China, leading to worsening profits. “Sharp turned into a deficit of 260.8 billion yen in March 2023 and a deficit of 149.9 billion yen in March 2024,” the Asahi Shimbun reported.
Sharp announced the suspension of production at its Sakai plant in May and began reducing panel production in June. It also decided to voluntarily retire 500 of its 800 employees who were engaged in panel manufacturing. Asahi said the plant will work with Softbank and others to convert it into an artificial intelligence (AI) data center. The data center is expected to be built with the goal of full operation sometime next year.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
