Low Indium Price Suffers Japan Nonferrous Smelters

Japanese nonferrous smelters are suffered from lower profit from ailing materials for liquid crystal industry. Nippon Mining & Metals and Mitsui Mining & Smelting posted inventory valuation loss in April-September period for indium, which is used for transparent electrode for liquid crystal panel, when the indium market price dropped by 45% from record high in February 2006. Sumitomo Metal Mining, which is the largest maker of double layered copper clad substrate for liquid crystal driving integrated circuit, reduced the profit for the electronics and advanced materials unit. Indium market price hit the lowest level in 3 and half year due to inventory adjustment for liquid crystal panel. Japanese sputtering target materials makers tried to secure indium to increase output of indium tin oxide. However, they are now suffered from inventory valuation loss under lower demand. The largest maker of Nippon Mining & Metals posted around 10 billion yen of inventory loss for the year to March 2007. Mitsui Mining & Smelting reported around 1 billion yen of negative impact from indium price for April-September period. With the negative impact, Nippon Mining & Metals posted 5.7 billion yen of lower recurring profit for electronic materials unit for the half year compared with original outlook in August. Japanese largest indium maker of Dowa Holdings reported around 800 million yen of negative impact from indium price.