Yazaki’s Electric Wire Division Estimates Lower Shipment

Yazaki Corporation estimates the annual shipment of electric wires and cables for power distribution and construction would decrease by 2-3% year-on-year to approximately 63,000 tonnes of copper through the fiscal year ending June 2008. The firm estimates the annual revenue for the business would keep almost flat year-on-year at 89 billion yen with some profits in the fiscal year. In Japan, the demand for construction cables has declined for these months due to the slow down of new housing starts. Yazaki is also impacted by the weak market.Yazaki’s electric wire operations division mainly supplies XLPE (cross-linked polyethylene) cables and VVF (vinyl-insulated and vinyl insulated flat-type) cables, those of which represent more than half of the segment’s total cable shipment. Yazaki is one of two largest VVF suppliers in Japan with Fuji Electric Wire of Osaka.The division has maintained annually surplus accounts since a fiscal year ended June 2005 and expects to gain profit for the latest fiscal year. However, the demand condition became severer for these months due to slower housing starts in Japan. Toshiyuki Nagasawa, the division manager, said the shipment showed downtrend mainly for VVF around the end of 2007 and remarkably dropped down in April.He said the market shows no sign of recovery yet and Yazaki would be suffered from severe cable shipment for the several months ahead of a next fiscal year starting July. The division schedules a large-lot shipment start of VVF cables for an ultra-large plant of flat panel televisions around Osaka in July. However, the total cable shipment through Jul08-Jun09 seems difficult to increase year-on-year since the large-lot shipment would be canceled by the worse condition in the housing market, said Mr. Nagasawa.