Nov. 12, 2002 – Tokyo, Japan – Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology Co. Ltd. has announced that at the end of November it will begin outsourcing final assembly of LCDs to a Japanese-affiliated plant in Guangdong Province, China.
The company aims to reduce its personnel costs by moving the labor-intensive process from Japan to the Guangdong factory. Mitsui & Co. will handle procurement of liquid crystal drivers and other parts, reported Nikkei Electronics Asia. Output is targeted at 600,000 cellular phone LCDs and 150,000 personal computer LCDs a month, all to be supplied to Toshiba Matsushita Display, which will market them primarily to equipment manufacturers with operations in China.
Other LCD makers such as Hitachi and Samsung Electronics of Korea have also announced plans to shift their final assembly processes to China.