Spansion sharpens focus on China, signs deal with SMIC
544795
Flash memory chip maker Spansion has sharpened its focus on China, revamping management in the Asia Pacific region and striking a deal to farm out some chip production to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC).Spansion, originally a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices&#160;and Fujitsu before it&#160;went public, provides NOR flash memory and its own MirrorBit flash chips to the mobile phone market.The changes in management structure and the SMIC deal are designed to boost Spansion&#39;s sales in China&#39;s mobile phone and consumer electronics markets. The management changes include the creation of a new position, president for the Greater China area, which usually includes China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.Several multinationals have increased their focus on China&#39;s mobile phone market in recent years. Research In Motion said Tuesday its popular&#160;BlackBerry handsets will soon be sold in China, an announcement that sent its stock soaring 9.8 percent on the Nasdaq Stock Market to $124.53 per share, despite the fact that most Chinese buy low-cost mobile phones.Last month, Hewlett-Packard, the biggest PC vendor, said it&#160;won a license from the Chinese government to sell more smartphone models&#160;in the country. It&#39;s currently allowed to sell only one smartphone, the hp6515 iPaq.The companies are being lured by China&#39;s rapid growth. It boasted 516 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of August, according to the Ministry of Information Industry of the People&#39;s Republic of China. The world&#39;s largest mobile phone company, China Mobile Communications, counted 350 million subscribers at of the end of September. No other country comes close to those numbers.The U.S. mobile population is at around 246 million, according to the CTIA, while India, which has a population nearly as big as China&#39;s, had 209 million mobile phone users as of the end of September, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.Spansion&#39;s new Greater China president, Gary Wang, will work with customers, government officials and partners to focus Spansion&#39;s business strategies to the requirements of the China market, the company said.Spansion had 2006 full-year sales of $2.6 billion.The agreement with SMIC will allow Spansion to have its MirrorBit flash memory products produced on 12-inch silicon wafers in China, which help reduce costs. The companies expect the deal to help Spansion sell flash chips to Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers.Spansion began outsourcing production of some of its chips to SMIC&#39;s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) last year, but TSMC does not offer production on 12-inch wafers in China. Taiwanese investment regulations prohibit TSMC from producing chips on 12-inch wafers in China. Spansion will continue to contract some manufacturing to TSMC.SMIC will also be able to manufacture and sell MirrorBit Quad chip products to certain markets in China, according to a memorandum of understanding, Spansion said.REFERENCES:HP wins license to sell more smartphones in China, Sep. 13, 2007First BlackBerry comes to China, with Alcatel-Lucent&#39;s help, Oct. 24, 2007
398321
Swedish telecoms group Ericsson have signed a one-billion-dollar deal with China Mobile to supply equipment to expand the Asian company&#39;s GSM coverage in 19 regions of China, Ericsson said Sunday.
642073
(InfoWorld) - In the most significant easing of investment regulations for Taiwan's technology industry to date, the island's government will allow two chip makers to build factories in China and one more to invest in a Chinese rival, a high level official said Tuesday. Memory chip makers Powerchip Semiconductor and ProMOS Technologies will both be allowed to build chip factories in China, while Advanced Semiconductor EngineeringÂ (ASE) will receive approvalÂ for a plan toÂ buy a low-end chip assembly companyÂ based in Shanghai. ASE is the world's largest chip assembly company. "An official announcement will be made on Wednesday," said Joseph Wu, chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan's official governing body for China relations. A group of government agencies agreed to the easing Monday during a committee meeting. The final step in making the decision formal is for the Taiwan Investment Commission, which is in charge of vetting China-bound investment applications, to give its stamp of approval and publicly announce the new measures. The easing is seen as a major breakthrough for Taiwan and China. For China, it could reinvigorate a chip industry that has slowed over the past few years as major chip makers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) posted a string of money-losing quarters. It also represents a token of goodwill by Taiwan to political enemy China. Taiwan and China remain enemies after splitting in 1949 amid civil war. The island fears China could use chip technology to bolster its military capabilities against Taiwan. Despite the strained relationship and tough investment rules, China remains by far the favored destination for Taiwanese investment due to their shared language and culture, and China's lower costs and huge potential market. The formal announcement expected Wednesday will likely fall short of hopes held by Taiwanese chip makers. Companies have been lobbying the government for years to allow them to transfer 0.18 micron chip production technology to China, but such an opening will have to wait, Wu said. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has made a strong push on the 0.18 micron issue, in part because Chinese rivals such as SMIC are already using the technology, and are able to win over customers because of it. Taiwanese regulations currently only allow its chip makers to use 0.25 micron technology in China. ASE's board of directors approved a plan to last month to invest $60 million in Global Advanced Packaging Technology, a Shanghai company.
669307
SEOUL In one of the highest-profile international acquisitions by a Chinese company, Shanghai Automotive Industry signed a $500 million deal on Thursday to acquire control of the South Korean company Ssangyong Motor.
172334
NINGBO, China  - The $1.5 billion, S-shaped bridge that will link Ningbo and Shanghai is graceful testimony to the huge sums that China is investing in infrastructure to keep raising the potential of the world's fourth-largest economy.
770297
China.com said it signed advertising contracts  with Google Inc. and China Mobile Ltd. to further expand its  strategic partnerships with the companies.
380518
China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and Shell Companies in China established a joint venture over the weekend in Nanjing, capital of East China&#39;s Jiangsu Province, according to Monday&#39;s China Daily.
312225
China, already a manufacturing  powerhouse, is flexing its financial muscles as companies based  there snatch up famous-name products from established companies  in the United States and Europe looking to divest low-margin  businesses.
491346
Chinese banks will be able to invest client money in British stocks and mutual funds, China said after a striking a deal with the European nation's regulators.
395547
Fujitsu will purchase two chip plants in Japan from Spansion Japan, a flash memory chip maker in which it holds a stake, the companies said Thursday.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
597700
SHANGHAI, China - Focusing on the fast-growing Chinese market, Japan&#39;s Toshiba and major Chinese appliance maker TCL have signed a broad agreement to cooperate in making and marketing appliances in China, the companies said Thursday.
172425
Memory manufacturer Spansion said it has developed new Flash memory technology supporting the Serial Peripheral Interface communication standard.
139229
Citic Securities, a top state-controlled investment bank in China, is planning to invest $1 billion in Bear Stearns and form a joint venture with the firm in Asia.
454967
The French Group Alstom will sign contracts worth up to 1 billion Euros (1.23 billion dollars) in China for the delivery of trains and locomotives, French sources with knowledge of the deal revealed to AFP.
154098
China and Argentina signed accords on Tuesday that could bring nearly $20 billion in investment from the Asian giant over the next 10 years for the capital-starved Latin American economy.
54028
China&#39;s biggest computer maker said Tuesday it is in acquisition talks with a major international technology company, a disclosure which follows reports it might buy IBM Corp.
168399
Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), China&#39;s largest chip maker, fell short of its bid to turn a profit in 2007, ending the year with a $40 million loss. But that&#160;won&#39;t stop the company from expanding in 2008.SMIC saw revenue of $1.5 billion during 2007, an increase of 5.8 percent over the previous year. But higher sales weren&#39;t enough to offset a slide in DRAM prices and the company ended the year with a loss, albeit one that was slightly narrower than the $44.1 million loss recorded by the company in 2006.SMIC turned in a fourth-quarter loss of $22.2 million on revenue of $395.3 million. By comparison, the company reported a profit of $143,000 for the fourth quarter of 2006, thanks to an exceptional one-time gain from the sale of used equipment.Once seen as a potential rival to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world&#39;s largest contract chip maker,&#160;SMIC has struggled to turn a profit. Part of the problem is that, as the company built a series of new chip plants in China, it turned to DRAM companies for orders in a bid to fill these production lines. But DRAM is a brutal business with razor-thin margins and&#160;recent declines in memory prices&#160;have hurt SMIC&#39;s bottom line.SMIC is trying to wean itself off DRAM as a source of revenue, but the switch to production of more logic chips, which generally command higher prices and have better margins, hasn&#39;t happened fast enough to pull the chip maker out of the red.DRAM represented 23.6 percent of SMIC&#39;s revenue during the fourth quarter, compared to 38.6 percent during the same period last year. By comparison, logic chips represented a greater percentage of SMIC&#39;s fourth-quarter revenue, rising from 57.4 percent in 2006 to 67.4 percent last year.Despite reporting another annual loss, SMIC continues to expand. The company announced plans to build a 200-millimeter production line and a 300-millimeter fabrication plant in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese city that lies next to Hong Kong. Construction will begin during the first half of 2008, the company said.