The Japanese multinational Kyocera is one of the major players in the field of semiconductors, and like many other companies in the sector, it focused part of its production in China. Until now.
come back home, come back. Hideo Tanimoto, president of Kyocera, announced these days that Kyocera will make an aggressive investment plan that will include the construction of a new plant in his home country, Japan. It had been almost two decades since they focused their efforts on this country.
China no longer compensates. This manager explained in the Financial Times that doing business in the Asian giant “works while [los productos] are made in China and sold in China, but the business model of producing in China and exporting abroad is no longer viable.”
And it has ceased to be a bargain to manufacture there. The situation is more complicated than ever, as he highlighted by adding that “not only have wages gone up, but obviously with everything that is happening between the United States and China, it is difficult to export from China to some regions.”
The West corners the giant. The trade war between the United States and China continues to escalate. In December the Netherlands and Japan were already fully involved in it, and the movement of Kyocera joins these pressures. The company has a 70% market share in the segment of ceramic components for chip manufacturing equipment.
Bad news for revenue. The controls imposed by the US on exports, yes, have been part of the reason why Kyocera has cut its economic forecasts by 31%. Tanimoto himself explained that “if chip equipment manufacturers stop shipping to China, our demand will be affected to some extent. Now they are even being asked not to distribute tools that are not so advanced.”
the situation gets complicated. The trade conflict is full of edges, and it is not easy for the US to seize the throne of chips from Taiwan. More tricky is the situation for China, which also finds it very difficult to become independent from US technologies and component manufacturers. Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam are postulated as alternatives to Chinese power, but the enormous dependencies generated in recent decades do not pose an easy solution to the problem.
Image: Michael Mazengarb
