Tamura Corp and Furukawa Electric to Establish Reflow Soldering System JV

Tamura FA System Corporation, a total subsidiary of Tamura Corporation, and Furukawa Electric announced on Wednesday they would establish a joint venture to produce and sell reflow soldering systems on October 1, 2006. Capital for the JV is 100 million yen, 70% of which Tamura Corp invests and 30% Furukawa Electric. Tamura Corp and Furukawa Electric will reorder their production and sales bases to improve productivity by canceling location overlap in both domestic and offshore markets. Then the JV targets 3 billion yen of annual net sales for the first year to September 2007 and 5 billion yen after 3 years.After the JV establishment, domestic production of reflow soldering systems would be integrated into Sayama plant of Tamura FA System and a total subsidiary of Tamura Corp, Tohoku Tamura Corporation. The JV will strengthen business collaboration with an existent productive affiliate of Furukawa Electric in China, Furukawa AVC Electronics (Suzhou), as a core base to produce and sell reflow soldering systems at overseas. The JV will produce both Tamura brand and Furukawa brand reflow soldering systems at the 3 bases. As to sales bases, the JV will firstly reorder the overlapping branches in China and Thailand.Reflow soldering system is a heating furnace in which electronic parts are soldered onto printed circuit board. Tamura Corp holds about 20% share and Furukawa Electric about 10% in the reflow soldering equipment market worldwide. The JV aims to increase the world market share to 35-40% in the future.