|
Financial details were not announced and the two said a joint venture
would be formed for the home network appliances.
The companies said they
were mulling the possibility of extending their relationship into
digital audiovisual products, which offer higher margins, an area where
rival electronics maker Sony Corp is targeting as a key strategic area.
Sony is aggressively
targeting digital, networked electronics that would let game machines;
TVs, stereos and cameras connect with each other and the Internet.
Since media reports of
the deal trickled out earlier this week, Matsushita shares appeared to
get a boost rising, 7.64 per cent since Monday to close at 2,325 yen on
Wednesday.
In the same period,
Hitachi was nearly unchanged, rising just half a percentage point to
1,344 yen.
Analysts saw potential
benefits, however, to combining the consumer product prowess of
Matsushita with the semiconductor technology of Hitachi, Japan’s
third-largest chipmaker.
Japan’s electronics
manufacturers have been busily forming alliances to meet the daunting
technological challenges posed by consumer electronics’ move into the
digital and networking era.
Matsushita earlier this
year joined hands with Toshiba Corp to build a cutting-edge liquid
crystal display factory in Singapore, while Hitachi entered into a joint
venture with NEC Corp to build a memory chip fabrication plant.
Analysts also gave a guarded thumbs-up
to a possible Hitachi-Matsushita alliance in kitchen and household
appliances, although they saw this mainly as a restructuring move.
|
