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Press Release
Media Contact:-
Aston Bridgman
NEC Corporation
TEL :81-3-3798-6511
FAX :81-3-3457-7249
E-mail:Aston_Bridgman@HO-PRD.ccgw.nec.co.jp
*****For immediate use September 9th, 1999
NEC To Establish New LCD Production Line at Kagoshima Plant- Installation of Used Equipment Cuts Lead Time, Improves Capital Efficiency -
NEC Corporation (NEC) (NASDAQ: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) and NEC Kagoshima, Ltd. will install a new TFT color liquid crystal display (LCD) production line at the plant in Kagoshima. Work to install the new line will begin from this month to prepare for full operation from April 2000, in an investment of 10 billion Yen. The line will be capable of producing the equivalent of 25,000 14-inch LCD panels per month. TFT color LCD displays offer space and power consumption that are almost half those of conventional CRT monitors. In addition to being used for displays in notebook personal computers, they are also seeing rapidly increasing demand for use in space-saving desktop PCs since their introduction in the spring of last year. As a result, NEC has been racing to keep up with demand since the autumn of last year. The company kept its production lines operating throughout the summer break, has planned to strengthen its lines in the second half of the current fiscal year to expand production and is consequently seeing a turnaround in the performance of its LCD business. Given this situation, NEC has moved to meet this flourishing demand in a timely way while ensuring the efficiency of its capital investment, by installing this new line based on used equipment. Compared to ramping-up a line based on new equipment, the lead time to mass production will be reduced from a year to approximately 6 months, while the total necessary investment will be reduced to around 70% for a 30% saving in capital expenditure. NEC's color LCD production facilities currently consist of two lines at NEC Kagoshima and another two lines at NEC Akita, Ltd. Altogether, these lines represent production capacity equivalent to 220,000 14-inch panels per month as of October 1999. With the addition of the new line, that capacity will be boosted to 245,000 panels per month as of April 2000. In order to install the new line, NEC has raised the capital expenditure budget for its color LCD operations from 6 billion Yen to 16 billion Yen.
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