Electric Materials Reduce Japan Nonferrous Smelters’ Profit

Japanese major 6 nonferrous metal smelters’ electronic materials units are suffered from unfavorable market condition with higher raw materials cost and lower price for materials of liquid crystal panel. Nippon Mining Holdings reported operating loss for the unit for April-December while Mitsui Mining & Smelting posted 47% lower profit and Sumitomo Metal Mining posted 33% lower profit for the units from same period of 2006. Mitsubishi Materials reported higher operating profit for the electronic materials and components unit in April-December from same period of 2006. The operating profit was 15% of the sales compared with 11% in same period of 2006. The firm enjoyed firm demand for 300 millimeter silicon wafer and semiconductor. Mitsui Mining & Smelting halved the operating profit for the intermediate materials unit in April-December when the firm was suffered from lower price for liquid crystal panel including chip on film products. Nippon Mining Holdings posed 2.4 billion yen of operating loss for electronic materials unit due to around 10 billion yen of inventory loss for plunging indium. Dowa Holdings also reduced the profit for electronic materials unit due to higher depreciation and research and development charge.