Onamba Expects Recovery of Wiring Harness Shipment in 2H

Onamba, Osaka based electric wire and cable manufacturer, expects the demand would recover for wiring unit for solar cells and wiring harness for flat panel displays (FPDs) in the second half of fiscal 2007 ending March 2008, said Masataka Koyama, president of Onamba to Japan Metal Bulletin. He referred to the steady shipment of wiring harness for machining tools as well as showed expectation the firm could expand output of ultra-fine special cables in April 2008. Onamba is Japanese largest supplier of wiring harness for consumer applications.The firm revised down its sales and profit estimation for fiscal 2007 based on the result of April-June 2007. Mr. Koyama explained that the shipment of FPD wiring harness decreased in 1Q due to the inventory adjustment of plasma display televisions and that the shipment of solar cell wiring unit didn’t increase as expected when solar cell production could not expand with shortage of polycrystalline silicon. He showed expectation for the demand recovery of these 2 products in 2H. FPD wiring harness would recover toward the Christmas and year-end sales season in December and Beijing Olympics in 2008. The shipment of solar cell wiring unit represents uptrend at present, especially for overseas users, said Mr. Koyama. Onamba is suffered from higher material costs. As to copper, the firm estimated average 850,000 yen per tonne for fiscal 2007 but the copper price hit 1 million yen per tonne actually. Mr. Koyama explained the firm would post 1.1 billion yen loss per year due to the copper price fluctuation, 70% of which could be reflected on the selling price and 300 million yen be absorbed by cost cut effort within Onamba Group.