On March 25 Koike (Ichobata, Chuo-shi, President Hikaru Koike) of the electronic parts materials maker decided to enter Matsushita Electric Industrial’s Kofu home appliance factory located in Kokubo industrial area (Kamisukiawara, Showa-cho) that is closed by the end of this March.
Koike moves entirely from the main office factory in Chuo-shi and builds larger production structure in order to be prepared for increase of 6” size lithium tantalite wafer (a diameter of 150 mm) that succeeded in world's first mass production in this spring, and also for demand expansion of optical component for next-generation DVD to be expected to increase in future.
Matsushita Electric Industrial exchanged a sale contract with Koike on the same day. The site of the factory 46,800 is square meters, and the total of floor space of building is 24,400 square meters. About 1.9 billion yen total expenses to include the acquisition cost of the land building and the move and repair cost according to Koike.
KOIKE begins repair work of the factory from May, and transfers production facilities sequentially aiming to transfer entirely by October. The existing main office factory sells it.
KOIKE has 60% of the world top share with the lithium tantalite wafer of part materials for mobile telephones.
The mobile telephone advances to the high function of the telephone as well as spread expansion such in the new economic country as Brazil or Russia, and the demand for part materials increases rapidly.
The company has started development of 6 inch wafer since 2 years ago from which a part can be got more effectively than the current 4 inch (a diameter of 100 mm) size, and launched on world’s first mass production in this February.
It is urgent need of the company to secure the space for the large-sized production facility that will be covered by a new factory. In addition, the orders for optical component for DVD increase rapidly with standards of the next-generation DVD having been unified by blue-ray disc.
Considering such circumstances, KOIKE needed to complete the arrangements immediately for coming production increase.
The new factory has 3.5 times scale of the existing factory where the company will also increase production of lithium niobate wafer of part material for mobile telephone, and will push forward the development of new business of environmental measures materials.
The sales amount of the fiscal year 2007 closing in this March of the company has a possibility of 4.01 billion yen at the same level as the previous year. By the increase in production in the new factory, the company aims at 8 billion, double amount in the fiscal year 2012.
