Japan Flexible Printed Circuit Makers to Improve Profitability

Japanese flexible printed circuit makers expect better profitability after July-September. The major makers including NOK Corporation, Fujikura and Sumitomo Electric Industries try to reduce cost and increase the high valued products sales after they experienced major operation profit drop for the year ending March 2007 due to drop of flexible printed circuit. They expect the better operating profit in July-September and October-December with better order receipt after the low level profit in April-June. The world top maker of NOK received higher order for hard disc drive and cell phone at home and abroad since April. The firm expects the sales and profit is in line with the estimate for the year. The firm posted 4.08 billion yen of operating profit for the business in April-June, which was 26.7% lower than same period of 2006. The world second maker of Fujikura expects the order receipt increases for flexible printed circuit for October-December after the recovery in July-September. The firm estimates the operating profit is around 7% of sales in July-September. Sumitomo Electric tries to improve the operating profit rate through cost down and shift to high valued products though the operating profit rate for sales is around 5% now. The makers were suffered from price down pressure from the users when mobile devices and digital appliances market experienced major price competition in past 2 years. The flexible printed circuit makers try to improve the profit rate toward around 10% for the sales though they expect the price down trend continues. They focus on cost down and shift to higher valued products to improve the profitability.