Sony and Samsung Shift to New LCD Panel Business Alliance

[btarunr]

Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) today announced that the two companies have signed agreements to transition the current business relationship with respect to LCD panels.

Under the agreement, Samsung will acquire all of Sony's shares of S-LCD Corporation (“S-LCD”), the two companies' LCD panel manufacturing joint venture, making S-LCD a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung. In consideration for the share transfer, cash consideration of approximately KRW 1.08 trillion* will be paid to Sony by Samsung. Concurrently, the two companies have entered into a new strategic agreement for the supply and purchase of LCD panels with a goal of enhancing the competitiveness of both companies. The agreement also allows Sony and Samsung to continue cooperative engineering efforts focused on LCD panel technology.

For Sony, this transaction will enable it to monetize its shares in S-LCD and aims to secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility. With whole ownership of S-LCD, Samsung anticipates heightened flexibility, speed and efficiency in both panel production and business operations.

Established in April 2004, S-LCD has continued to deliver advanced and cost-competitive LCD panels to both of its parent companies, contributing to the expansion of the respective parties' TV businesses, and the large-sized LCD TV market overall. However, LCD panel and TV market conditions have now changed. In order to respond to such challenging conditions and to strengthen their respective market competitiveness, the two companies have agreed to shift to a new LCD panel business alliance.

The share transfer and payment are targeted to close by the end of January 2012, subject to necessary approvals from regulatory authorities.

As a result of this transaction, a non-cash impairment loss of approximately JPY 66 billion is expected to be incurred by Sony in the third quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, due to the reevaluation of its S-LCD shares. This loss includes an impact from the fluctuation of exchange rate. Despite this one-time loss, Sony estimates that the transaction will result in substantial savings on and after January 1, 2012 in respect of costs associated with its procurement of LCD panels. The current estimate of the yearly savings in respect of such costs is approximately JPY 50 billion, compared to LCD panel procurement costs estimated for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. Neither the one-time loss nor the estimated cost savings were included in Sony's forecast of consolidated financial results for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, announced on November 2, 2011. Sony is currently reevaluating this forecast, taking into account this transaction and other factors that might affect its full year FY2011 consolidated financial results forecast.

Facts about S-LCD

• Established: April 26, 2004
• Capital: KRW 3.3 Trillion
  (Samsung Electronics: 50% plus 1 share, Sony: 50% minus 1 share)
• Representative: Donggun Park, CEO
• Location: Tangjeong, Chung Cheong Nam-Do, South Korea
• Production Items: 7th and 8th generation Amorphous TFT LCD

The final amount of such payment will be determined based on S-LCD’s financial statements as of the end of December 2011.

[theJesus]

So, in the future, all of Sony's LCD panels will be made by Samsung pretty much?

[Mussels]

f*ck.


i love samsung, but refuse to buy sony products. what am i meant to do now?

[Sasqui]

Methinks this is a strategic move related to Samsungs heavy investment in OLED

[cheesy999]

Originally Posted by Mussels

but refuse to buy sony products. what am i meant to do now?

what's wrong with Sony's products?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by cheesy999

what's wrong with Sony's products?

i've hated them irrationally ever since i saw a TV ad for the playstation 2, showing off how fantastic the graphics were in one of the final fantasy games.

pre-rendered CGI from a cinematic, touted as 'in game real time graphics'

i died a little inside, and decided i hate companies with deceptive advertising.


(and recently my housemate bought a 2.5K 3D TV from sony, which looked like absolute shit - so many 'enhancements' that make the image look worse and not better, many of which cant be disabled - didnt make me change my mind)

[cheesy999]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i've hated them irrationally ever since i saw a TV ad for the playstation 2, showing off how fantastic the graphics were in one of the final fantasy games.

pre-rendered CGI from a cinematic, touted as 'in game real time graphics'

i died a little inside, and decided i hate companies with deceptive advertising.


(and recently my housemate bought a 2.5K 3D TV from sony, which looked like absolute shit - so many 'enhancements' that make the image look worse and not better, many of which cant be disabled - didnt make me change my mind)

I would care about advertisements like that, but since Nintendo and Microsoft also do adverts like that I don't really see that much difference

I like Sony products for their reliability, I've never had a single Sony product break or fail on me, although of course, I'm sure like all things there'll be someone else out there who has had every product they ever owned broken in a week

In my opinion, they're only as bad as every other company out there

[treehouse]

Sony started going downhill ever since they got that welsh guy as CEO/president.

[3volvedcombat]

Originally Posted by cheesy999

I would care about advertisements like that, but since Nintendo and Microsoft also do adverts like that I don't really see that much difference

I like Sony products for their reliability, I've never had a single Sony product break or fail on me, although of course, I'm sure like all things there'll be someone else out there who has had every product they ever owned broken in a week

In my opinion, they're only as bad as every other company out there

Yeh I have gone threw 2-3 PS2's(All still work) I am still using my 160gb PS3. I have had 1 PSP 1000(sold and traded) then I eventually got a PSP 2000 and then gave it to a friend(2000 still works to this day/1000 was in gamestop hands).
We have a 47inch bravia HDTV that frankly works really well doing its job to this moment.
Playstation 1 my friend has still works also.

I my self have also never seen a sony product just be a shitter or DOA.

We even ended up selling an old flip LCD Sony camera(that still worked when sold) that was 4 years of age or older.

We even had an old CRT bulb 38-42inch Sony TV, that worked for 10-20 years. I did break, because the power lines shorted and landed on the phone lines also and blew 40-50% of our electronics up in our house. Then that sony product died.

Never even seen Sony in my tech-shop 1 time (repaired LCDs/TV's) at the time also.

Sony is a bit better or the same as their competitors.

[twicksisted]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i've hated them irrationally ever since i saw a TV ad for the playstation 2, showing off how fantastic the graphics were in one of the final fantasy games.

pre-rendered CGI from a cinematic, touted as 'in game real time graphics'

i died a little inside, and decided i hate companies with deceptive advertising.


(and recently my housemate bought a 2.5K 3D TV from sony, which looked like absolute shit - so many 'enhancements' that make the image look worse and not better, many of which cant be disabled - didnt make me change my mind)

dude you have to admit thats a bit silly

[Kantastic]

Originally Posted by cheesy999

what's wrong with Sony's products?

Can't speak for Mussels, but my old man dropped 2.5K on a SONY DLP and it didn't last a year before getting hit with the blue blob defect. These TVs were inherently defective and SONY knowingly sold them at a steep discount from their original 3-3.5K price to get rid of the product instead of doing a recall. I guess their cost-benefit analysis showed that dealing with the class lawsuit and repairing the small percentage of consumers who were aware enough to spot the 'free repair' would cost less than a total recall.

They're as bad as Ford in the 1900s with their defective cars. SONY is a shit company that makes supposedly decent products but offers absolutely shit support (if any). Crossed them out in my book a long time ago, and none of my relatives buy SONY either.