Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony plan on entering LCD partnership

In an announcement Wednesday, Sony unveiled that they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hitachi and Toshiba, in which the three will merge parts of their LCD businesses and enter a joint venture.

According to Sony, the three LCD giants will merge their small and medium sized display businesses (primarily used in smartphones and tablets) to form Japan Display KK as soon as next year. The new company will be government backed and subsidized in order to decrease costs, with the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan controlling 70% of the shares. This control does have a price however, as the corporation will be investing over $2.5 billion in an attempt to enhance Japan’s edge on the LCD market and combat increased competition from Korean-based LG and Samsung.

The current agreement is only temporary, but legal documents are expected to be signed by the end of this year and the merger should be completed by Spring of 2012.  

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