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Sharp Warns That It Might Collapse
angry tapir writes "Japan's Sharp, a major supplier of LCD displays to Apple and other manufacturers, has warned that it may not survive if it can't turn around its business. The Osaka-based manufacturer said there is "material doubt" about its ability to continue operating in its earnings report filed Thursday. Sharp added, however, that it still believes it can cut costs and secure enough credit to survive. Its IGZO technology for mobile displays is likely to be a key element of its business strategy."
Sell their LCD's to apple at a higher cost why should apple be the only one making a premium off the screens?
This would be an opportune time for Apple to buy Sharp, re-organize the beast then ramp up displays and other parts for its booming business. If Sharp collapses, Apple will be in trouble - guaranteed.
Bet big on the wrong screens
So how many shares have you shorted since you're so convinced of this?
Sharp is probably suffering from the prices they agreed to with Apple. It can fun throwing your weight around but it has limits.
Really, which LCD displays do they supply to Apple? LG and Samsung are major suppliers, I can't remember the last time I saw an LCD in an Apple product wasn't LG/Sharp.
Perhaps if Sharp actually was a major supplier they wouldn't be in quite so close to bankruptcy.
The 24-month chart is probably more informative than your 3-month chart. I realize it kind of spoils your intended narrative, though.
Like any stock, Apple's shares have seen significant corrections before - especially in the modern market.
#DeleteChrome
Coincidentally, we laughed at the store yesterday noticing that the only fuzzy displays were the Sharp ones in comparison to the others. Can they be so ignorant of their product quality issues?
Apple's stock constantly hovers around a 13-14 P/E.
So what happens next quarter when Apple has had yet another 27-40% growth spurt, fueled by a large number of new products recently released?
The stock all along has been drug along by the combination of inexorable growth and the inevitability of the stock having to rise to keep up with the profits that Apple is actually making.
BTW, Amazon's stock has a P/E of 3000 (!).
So mull that over before you decide to short.
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
that's dull
Really, which LCD displays do they supply to Apple?
Apple tried to diversify their supply chain away from Samsung. Sharp are amongst those who made the retina displays for the iPhone 5 (and the mini Ipad)
This would be a really good time for Samsung to put the boot in. Interesting to see if they do anything.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
When I hear that said about a stock, I'm inclined to research shorting it.
My impression of Sharp may be anachronistic, I don't know if the company is still what it used to be, but I think of them as manufacturing really terrific products, particularly portable electronics (remember these?), but hardly selling them or anything at all outside of Japan. Even within Japan I guess their marketing wasn't so good. Sorta the anti-Apple - poor marketing, but great and often pretty open products.
The #3 television manufacturer in the world, Sony, announced on Friday it's cutting its medium-term TV sales goals in half.
Four days earlier, #5 Panasonic (Matsushita) announced it's cutting its flatscreen TV production in half.
Sharp is ranked #4. Apparently all three of the Japanese manufacturers bet too big on TVs and are getting trounced by Korean rivals Samsung (#1) and LG (#2).
I'm not sure I understand the relevance to tech or geeks.
Sharp's position is entirely determined by the choices they make or have made. If they make bad decisions, their business will suffer and if they make good ones their business will prosper.
Unlike tech-oriented political news or tech-oriented situation reports ("such-and-so has a 0-day exploit"), we have no influence over the outcome. Our collective outrage can inform and influence political positions (maybe), and our judgement and expertise can influence technical decisions ("they never fixed the problem"), but can we really influence business decisions?
There are other LCD manufacturers, right? Does this even affect us?
Sharp might collapse? Um... OK, got it. Next article.
And those who are taking a profit. AAPL generally follows the market but when it's bearish, it tends to go down slightly more than average.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Part of Sharp's problem's are twofold. Their investment in R&D accounts for a lot of their debt. And of course Japans overall problem with the Yen.
Checking to see if SHARP can also jump on the "too big to fail" free money bandwagon. Isn't it fun when failure has no consequences?
Flat Panel TVs have become pretty cheap and with all the added functions and reliability, everybody who wants one or more may already have them. I have a Sharp Aquos which has an estimated 60,000 hours of liftetime. It's great, by the way. At 8 hours per day, that's about 20 years of use. And, as I said, everyone who wants or needs one or more of these things already has them, there's not much of a market. I've seen prices for 50 +" Samsungs or Sharps for $1,200 - $1,500 at Costco. It seems that Sony has already given up on flat panels even though they are supposed to be pretty good, maybe the best. Not to advocate an illegal pricing structure, it does seem like the producers have to increase prices.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Why is it every time slashdot has a story, there's always one questioning why the story is even posted here? Here I'll do the research you didn't. Sharp makes a lot of electronics that is sold to other companies to brand under their names. Two Sharp makes electronic components that also go into a lot of products. There absence would be a big hole for awhile.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tear open that Apple display, you won't find an Apple logo on the display panel.
And wouldn't that make Apple just so happy.
The horror, the horror
And keep the divisions relevant to their products. I mean, Jobs did this very thing to Apple itself when he returned.
Do you remember the Apple QuickTake digital camera?
Nor does anyone else.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/11/05/sharp-statement-lost-in-translation/?mod=WSJBlog
Insert into iPad mini. Call it magical.
Your iPad is made with the tears, sweat and blood of the underclass of China - and someday it'll be made with the tears, sweat and blood of the underclass of South Carolina. Mark my words, we won't always be the consumers of the world.
Apple has easily 10 times that in cash on hand and a quarterly profit of 8 billion. If Apple wanted Sharp, the only thing blocking it would be japanese or american regulators. In reality a middle company like Foxconn or one of apples other suppliers would make a better fit.
anyone expect any other result, who gets stuck with the bankruptcy bill.
Aside from the fact that Apple doesn't have the needed expertise to run a company like Sharp. Money, nor a need for particular parts confers that expertise. There's also going to be a culture clash between an American company and a Japanese one. Also much like the American government has say so over foreign companies buying locals, the Japanese government has the same power.
Oh my....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ALsvU50wQ
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
When I see people shorting a stock because they read a comment on slashdot.......
Man, sometimes I think it would be awesome if people learned what they were talking about before spouting off.
From someone in Japan, who reads Japanese news, and knows about Sharp, let me dispell a few things:
>What does anyone really expect when SHARP sells BS products like the Sharp IG-BC2UB High Density Plasmacluster
PlasmaCluster is a very respected brand in the US, and Sharp is widely regarded to make the best air filters.
These also sell for quite a profit margin, I expect. (They are not cheap, but I doubt they cost that much to make).
>Sharp produces commodities.
Well yes, and no. Sharp produces both components (like LCD Screen panels), and appliances like air filters, cell phones, etc.
Sharp is *not* a budget brand in Japan.
>Coincidentally, we laughed at the store yesterday noticing that the only fuzzy displays were the Sharp ones in comparison to the others
Well firstly, why would you laugh about that? Anyway, Sharp is well known to be one of the most sophisticated manufacturers of LCD displays in not just Japan, but the world.
Their Aquos brand LCD TVs are easily one of the most popular in Japan because of the display quality, and they source LCDs to Apple and other manufacturers as well.
If you saw a crappy Sharp display, it was either very very old, or you are full of crap. How would you know what brand display panel was in the thing you were looking at?
>I'm not sure I understand the relevance to tech or geeks.
Well if Sharp were only a LCD manufacturer, it might be one thing, but they make a lot of components and products.
Sharp disappearing will leave a crater on not just the Japanese Business Landscape, but the electronics landscape.
> Sharp Failed to Diversify
Again, Sharp makes lots of products, and lots of components that go into other stuff. I don't think they make anything with an obscenely high profit margin, though, and if they do, then it probably pays for something else that's losing money.
(The prices may be high, but I think many of their costs are high as well).
They pay high labor costs do to most of their manufacturing in Japan, and they invested hugely in a very large plant for making very large LCD screens.
This was a bet-the-company type of move, and they made it just before the Lehman shock thing, and guess what - not so many people wanted huge screen TVs right after that.
They also invested heavily in making solar panels, but I think that hasn't worked out as well as planned, either.
And now when people have money, they like buying smaller screen things like PSP Vita or SmartPhones/tablets. They are trying to re-gear in that direction, but it is taking them time.
They were a bit late to the SmartPhone game, although their Aquos Keitai Android phones are among the most popular in Japan now.
Still Sharp has a log of world-class technology, experience/experts, and legit patents/processes.
They won't disappear, someone will buy them if it comes to that.
Big Japanese mobile companies always take a long time to turn around if something happens. They all still don't understand why the iphone is successful since all the management level there was brought up in a time when NTT had a monopoly and the companies produced mobile phones nearly exclusively for NTT/docomo (imode), which in turn force fed the mobiles to the customers.
I liked Sharps products, learned programming on a MZ-80B. I always wanted to buy a zaurus, one of the first linux-based PDAs, but it was mainly sold/available inside Japan. When i lived in Japanlater, i bought a sharp netwalker T1 (only available in Japan).
The netwalker demonstrates all of Sharps shortcomings in a technically not so bad device:
-Target the Japanese market only from the beginning
-make no advertisements about the special features it has (e.g. standard usb host port, interesting pointing device layout)
-make a half-assed decision of using Ubuntu on it (for *two* devices they used the ARM port of Ubuntu)
-leave it unpolished, with easy to fix show-stopper bugs, trusting that the Japanese will always buy Sharp
They should open source their OS. I've been hoping to see someone more kernel hackey crack the current display menus, and I'm sure it would a draw a buzz. Quick cash injection Sharp! Look to it!
your right, but stock dropping $100 after the release of a new phone is a little worrying.
So what happens next quarter when Apple has had yet another 27-40% growth spurt, fueled by a large number of new products recently released?
What happens if Apple has a shrink spurt instead?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
ion air cleaners are also REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD anyplace with electronics..
Yeah the ion sticks to the dust and lets you get it out of the air easier... but... that charged particle is now attracted to all your nifty expensive electronic equipment and starts growing little forests of fuzz on everything.
its worse for your electronics than owning a longhaired cat....
They should start making and selling X68000 computers again.
It's not about quality, it's about how many you can sell. Nobody wants a TV they can only watch in a dark room, except for a very small group of men. That makes the product rather... unmarketable.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Doesn't sharp current produce the LCD display found in the iPhone 5?
Because Samsung gave them the finger.
You can't solve financial problems by raising prices. You have charge prices similar to what others are charging or else you will just lose all your business. You have to look at what's driving your costs and figure out if you can reduce them enough to stay afloat, or if you need to be rethinking your business plan.
Apple doesn't buy large companies. And there's a good reason, Apple's management doesn't need to be worrying about restructuring and turning around a failing Flat-Panel display manufacturer. They've got enough to worry about just designing and selling their products.
But, Apple has been known to invest in companies in order to ramp up and modernize production. It's not too big a step to go from that to bailing out a company with loans. Though It would probably be smarter for them to give the money to a company that isn't on the verge of collapse to buy the facilities from Sharp. Less to worry about.
As a happy owner of a Sharp Aquos TV, I really hope Sharp can survive.
In Japan, Sharp is the only brand of TVs with both Japanese and English menu settings.
My 3 year old Sharp TV even has an RS-232 port that I have connected to my HTPC and I use it to control most things from it: power on/off, change input, volume, etc. The TV even came with a manual describing the protocol, what else could I ask for?
I have checked their newer models and unfortunately they have removed this feature. I am hoping to find some similar control capability via the network port, with an open protocol, but haven't found anything yet (I welcome any hints!).
The only thing my Sharp TV doesn't do well is displaying the image properly when using nouveau, but since it works well when using the nvidia driver I'm not sure if its a buggy EDID implementation from Sharp or nouveau.
Charts like these exist for one purpose: The Trend. If a stock is trending down, it will most likely continue down. That's why it's called a trend. That's why the chart exists.
Not even a month ago (or so) a Slashdotter saw AAPL go below $700 and bought it at 695, saying, it will be back "over $700 tomorrow". That was $200 ago. I believe he bought 100 shares (claimed). That's 200 x 100 American, plus those piss fees. All because he "thought" he knew what he was doing. Trends don't lie. Think of all those babies' shoes.
Samsung is still producing apple displays, the small ipad one is samsung for example.
Will this void the warranty of my Sharp EL-330A calculator (in black)?
I have fond memories of some really nice Sharp HiFi (Optonica) but despite being fairly ubiquitous in the market with a toe in pretty much all electronic/electric product areas, they did seem to shift from a 'High Street' brand to a parts supplier. As a result, they have dropped of most people's radar as a brand.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Just like say Japan did to the European colonies and Germany did to almost all of Europe?
There is indeed lingering resentment and the Japanese indeed did not apologize or pay damages unlike the Germans but to think this matters on a high level unless it is convenient (when either side needs to divert attention from internal problems) is childish.
The higher-ups have no morals, they are perfectly willing to deal with former enemies often before the last victims have stopped twitching. See McArthur and the rebuilding of Japan. Prosecuting Japanese war criminals? Far to inconvenient when massive contracts are to be won.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sharp is then encouraged to slim down to their work with Apple. Apple buys the newly streamlined Sharp. Tada.
...with the internets when I can read this article and appreciate the correct use of possessive in the form of its without the erroneous apostrophe.
Apple is more likely to buy Sharp and try to keep the entire supply chain in-house.
But a "Sharp Apple" could leave a bitter taste
Because right now SHARP tv's are the best you can buy. They are better quality than Anyone else and honestly far larger than anyone else. Where else can you pick up an 80" LED backlight LCD for under $3500.00
LG is crap recently. their redesign has all plugs coming straight out the back.... DUH, no wall mounting unles you want a 3" gap.
Panasonic is still plagued with failed power supply boards.
Sony is overpriced rebranded LG.
Samsung sets are junk. Just like how their projectors are junk. Control protocols for samsung are random at best, and not reliable to even turn the sets on or off.
I really hope they can turn it around. They were suposed to have 120" sets out early 1st Q of 2013 and I have at least 15 clients wanting them for the board room instead of a projector and screen.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nokia and other hailing companies should come out too!!
Whenever an established Japanese company is in danger, most comments here suggest an economical solution (Samsung buy Sharp, Apple buy Sharp etc). But when an established American company is in danger, then we all want a political solution (raise taxes on imports, stop globalization).
Yes, off-topic, but an interesting observation none the less.
Perhaps they think they'll make it up on volume?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
OEMs go to the suppliers yearly, demanding a (often contractual) reduction in price by 1-2% ... whether the suppliers are able to supply the parts at the lower cost is irrelevant, and most will gladly bend over in fear of not loosing the next deal (which they'll likely also lose money on).
Actually what happens is that the lower tier suppliers price in future price reductions knowing that the OEMS will demand price reductions in future years. The suppliers aren't stupid so they price that in up front. Occasionally someone is dumb enough to not take this into account and they lose their a$$ on the job and aren't a factor the next time around. I'm a cost accountant and deal with this all the time. You pretty much have to assume between 1% and 5% give backs (amount depends on the customer) when pricing a part to a US auto supplier. I've even seen them demand retroactive discounts going back 3 years.
This really is more of a problem with the US auto makers and their bigger suppliers. Frankly the US auto makers tend to have a pretty dysfunctional relationship with their supply chain. They tend to prefer their suppliers to be right on the edge of bankruptcy if possible. The Japanese manufacturers don't tend to beat up their suppliers so much and tend to have much more of a partnership relationship. I've actually had a Japanese auto maker ask a company I worked with if they were making enough margin to be healthy. You really do not want to be a Tier 1 supplier to a US auto maker. Tier 3+ is fairly safe and there are profits to be had there.
Solution: Deport all blacks living in America to their home countries. We'll see if you like living in a mud hut without electricity and eating grubs.
yup, the only problem is getting your timing down....I've thought for years apply products have too much hype behind them, and if you just this year decided to act on it....if you bought in January 1, expecting to short, you could have gone from a 400$ stock to a 600+$ stock in a mere 3 months. it's hard to time when a bubble pop's.
i thought about it seriously at 600, nad passed. I darn near did at 700, but i decided would not want to be caught in an avalanche going the wrong direction, and that's why i stick to ETF's mostly.
You have made the best stereos & TVs & sound systems out there. The good will stay & the bad will go, that is business, see you guys next year :)
Bought some Japanese wireless mouse three years ago, costing US$70 and it always shakes when my hand stops moving - the accuracy is far worse than the cheapest Logitech models, practically unusable for gaming and painting. One would never expect such terrible quality for a mouse of that price.
Bought a Panasonic-made electric toothbrush two years ago, costing US$200, died within one year because the battery made in china died and it's NOT REPLACEABLE.
Then I bought a german one, cost only one third and unlike those Japanese crap it's actually made in Germany (including the battery!) instead of 3rd-world factories full of slave workers.
Conclusion: Japanese companies just sell overpriced crap with fancy appearance.
I'm very happy that they're all going to die now. The sooner and the better!
Announce that your business isn't surviving but you'd like to turn it around, then try to get credit for such a move.
Yeah, if I were a creditor I'd totally jump all over that one. Note the sarcasm.
http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=AAPL&t=3m&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US®ion=US
[romney_wants_to_buy_your_vote.com]
From over $700 per share not even two months ago to heading under $477 per share today !! How the rich and shiny fall so fast !! It's a taking Sharp, The Jap Conglomerate, with it !!
Is the bad punctuation and grammar an "All Your Base" joke?
Sorry to burst both your bubbles, but if you track a 2 year chart of the Nasdaq and in fact the Dow Jones composite too, and you overlay it on the AAPL chart, you see that AAPL for the past year have basically been broadly tracking the overall ups and down of the market itself ... and that actually has more to do with factors like central bank market interventions, currency and bond markets, inflation, happenings in Europe etc.
Nasdaq
Dow
So what happens next quarter when Apple has had yet another 27-40% growth spurt, fueled by a large number of new products recently released?
What happens if Apple has a shrink spurt instead?
Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and short AAPL?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
Well it all comes down to whether there are any people of vision left in Apple.
Not sure if you remember, but Apple's stock only really started to rise in 2004, when they started to get a name as a funky consumer electronics company, instead of that company that makes those Mac computers that artists and designers use.
Jobs did have a vision or two, which came at the right time in PC and Internet history. Personal mobile devices that did really amazing stuff. Do you think it would have worked if everyone didn't have a Windows PC to run iTunes on, or have WiFi and reasonable mobile broadband? You know what they say about "an idea whose time has come". How often, exactly, do you think that happens in the life of a company?
Steam is one such idea, and it has been milked for a long time, because there were no competitors. Now there are, in the various "app store" models emerging. Facebook has been even luckier, they're in a very hard to break monopoly position.
But, like Steam, Apple's great ideas have competition now. Now Apple is, once again, just like any other I.T. company. If you think there's another guy at Apple with the next New Idea Whose Time Has Come, let me know and I'll buy stock.
For now, however, chances are Apple is in a slow slide back to that place from whence they came - a company with a niche product that doesn't do very well against competition.
Sharp painted itself into a corner. The Board and Exec staff did it, and the shareholders have to suffer with it.
Happens all the time. So what!
Making bad choices in a volatile market will hurt... and may be fatal. To quote Queen: Another one bites the dust.