Thursday, March 17, 2011

FACTBOX: Japan quake impact on auto makers, electronics firms

TOKYO: The following is a roundup of the effect on auto makers and electronics makers following the March 11 devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Crippled reactors at a nuclear power complex has raised fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.

AUTO MAKERS

Toyota Motor Co said it will halt operations at its 12 main assembly plants in Japan, extending the suspension until March 22. The closure of the factories, since Monday, will result in lost production of 95,000 vehicles.

But it will restart production of spare parts on Thursday at seven plants near its base in Toyota City, central Japan, to be shipped to service centres for repairs to Toyota vehicles already on the road. From March 21, Toyota will also begin making car parts at the same plant for assembly factories overseas.

Honda Motor Co is suspending all production in Japan until at least Sunday. Honda manufactured 69,170 cars in January in Japan, where it made 24 percent of its cars.

Nissan Motor Co said output has been stopped at three out of four of its car assembly factories in Japan. Nissan made 81,851 cars in January in Japan, where it manufactured 23 percent of its vehicles.

It will resume production on March 17 and March 18 at its Kyushu plant while supply inventory lasted. Operations after Saturday March 19 were yet to be decided.

Goldman Sachs said in a report that rough calculations indicated the profit impact of stopping production for one day would be about 6 billion yen ($74.3 million) for Toyota and 2 billion yen for Honda and Nissan.

Mazda Motor Corp said it still plans to suspend production at two plants in southwestern Japan to March 20, but has not decided on how to proceed after that.

Fuji Heavy Industries Co said all five of its car and car parts-related plants for its Subaru-brand vehicles in Gunma prefecture, north of Tokyo, will be closed until at least Sunday.

ELECTRONICS MAKERS:

Sony Corp opened one factory, which makes optical films, used in LCDs and also manufactures adhesives, on Wednesday. Seven plants, which make an array of devices from IC cards to blu ray discs to lithium batteries, remain closed.

Sony is not sure when the plans will resume operations. Some of the plants' output is supplied to other manufacturers, including customers overseas.

Toshiba said output was still halted at a factory in Iwate prefecture making system LSI chips used in microprocessors and image sensors. It has begun work to bring the factory back on line but has no time frame to resume output.

Toshiba said on Thursday an assembly line in a plant in Japan making small liquid crystal displays for smartphones and other devices will be closed for a month to repair damaged machinery.

Canon said it may not be able to resume production this week at three plants that sustained serious damage in the quake. One manufactures lenses, another makes ink jet printers and the third produces equipment for manufacturing LCD screens.

Canon said it was also forced to suspend production until Friday at one of its main plants in Oita, on the southern island of Kyushu, where it makes cameras, lenses and compact photo printers. The world's largest maker of digital cameras said it was having difficulty securing necessary parts.

Nikon Corp said four of its production facilities were closed, including two out of its precision equipment plants, but the effect on cameras and lenses is seen as minor, since almost all output for those devices is done in Thailand.

Nikon does not have a timetable to re-open the plants.

Panasonic said none of its manufacturing northern Japan facilities, including those making optical pick-ups and other electronic parts, digital cameras and audio equipment were badly damaged but it would take time to resume operations as infrastructure needed to be restored.

Renesas , the world's No. 5 chipmaker, said it has halted operations at eight of its facilities and was unsure when it would restart production at the locations.

OTHERS

Shin-Etsu Chemical , the world's leading maker of silicon wafers, said two of its plants near the worst-hit areas remain offline. The firm is unable to say when it will restart operations.

A portion of the silicon wafer production at these plants is shipped to chip companies overseas. The company is trying to boost production elsewhere, particularly of 300-millimetre wafers, to make up the shortfall. - Reuters

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