What They Say
Sharp reported its quarterly and half year result to the end of September. Overall sales were up 3.3% year on year for the first half at $9.02 billion with profits down 75.7% to $72 million. The display device business was down 6.9% to $2.92 billion with losses of $86 million. The second quarter was down 2.8% in revenue to $1.55 billion and the loss was $93 million (against a small profit in fiscal Q1).
The firm saw revenues rise in its 8K Ecosystem business by 12.3% with business solution sales up 20% to $1.12 bilion with a profit of $2.8 million. The firm said that it was conducting a ‘comprehensive business structure review in the European TV business, etc’
What We Think
In the presentation, Sharp said that it was considering ‘structural reform’ of its Sakai Display Products Corp (SDP) fab in the second half of the year. It’s not obvious that the demand side is going to fix the current supply/demand challenges for LCD, so some restructuring at SDP might be welcome to other players in LCD. (BR)