Foxconn to slurp Sharp for US$5.6 BEELLION

Foxconn's CEO Terry Gou says Sharp will be slurped into the Chinese manufacturer's maw by the end of February. According to Reuters, executives of the two companies have reached a consensus about the main details of the ¥659 (US$5.6 billion) deal. “We have a consensus”, he reportedly said. “The rest is a process … I don't see …

[John Smith 19]

Tend to associate Sharp with displays

How the world turns.

Once the US feared takeover by Japanese Corp.

[N13L5]

That's sad...

I guess one can hope Sharp will continue to sell IGZO displays to all comers.

It would be extremely annoying if access to those displays became even slightly limited to Foxconn's manufacturing customers...

like disgusting Crapple

[Aslan]

"Bot companies are, however, struggling to convince an apparently-jaded public to upgrade their smartmobes." ROTM, really now?

[Fihart]

Ah, the good old days !

When Japanese brands like Sharp, Sansui and Sanyo destroyed the UK television manufacturers and all but the premium UK hifi brands due to their impertinent reliability.

However an impressively large 1960s Sansui hybrid transistor/valve (tubes for US readers) receiver threw a friend across a room while he was trying to fix it. Oh, how we laughed.

I still use some 1970s Japanese hifi (Sony and NAD) and a friend has an equally ancient Trio/Kenwood amp which he swears cannot be matched by modern stuff, regardless of price.

[Missing Semicolon]

Government support..

... note how they at least tried to keep an iconic Japanese brand locally-owned. Our lot would just nod and smile and accept the bung well-paid consultancy...

[Gigabob]

Haier gets GE appliances while Foxconn gets Sharp. How will the Chinese manage the brand they are buying? Will they depreciate like RCA and Polaroid in Korean hands, or will they be energized and price competitive as Lenovo did with IBM x-series. A lot of Potential for Foxconn to make Sharp into a higher quality but lower cost Vizio.

[Aslan]

A significant part of RCA's downfall was agreeing to sell electronics to Walmart. RCA got into a situation where the Walmart revenue was a must have and Walmart kept insisting on lower prices for RCA's products. Walmart destroyed the brand by reducing quality testing, cutting warranties, insisting on lower quality components to reduce cost. RCA was forced to cut R&D because of the lowered prices. Eventually it got to the point with RCA where Walmart said we need lower prices, don't test the electronics at all, ship them and if they're bad customers will return them.

When was RCA owned by the Koreans? I though most of what's left went to the Indian's in 2007.

RCA was owned by the French from 1982-2007 and then there was a joint venture with the Chinese began is 2004 after the brand had already been destroyed. RCA's relationship with Walmart destroyed them, well before the Chinese had anything to do with it. There was very little left for the Chinese to trash.