The following is excerpted from IRG's weekly stock report:

Internet

• Nintendo Co Ltd (NTDOY), NTT East Corp and NTT West Corp [NTT East/West] (NTT)have officially announced that they will jointly promote the connection of NTT East/West's optical fiber [FTTH] service, FLET'S Hikari, and Nintendo's Wii. Nintendo places Wii's current Internet access ratio at about 40 percent, which is lower than the broadband penetration of over 50 percent. Under the agreement, the companies will open a joint call center and offer FFTH line installation in tandem with Wii setup for Internet access.

Mobile/Wireless

• eMobile Ltd. announced that it will start offering Japanese wireless subscribers the fastest and fixed price data service by December. The new service has been described as allowing downloads at a rate of 7.2 megabytes per second using the so-called high-speed down-link packet access [HSDPA] technology. Earlier in March when it started its 3G service, eMobile offered a maximum download speed of 3.6 Mbps. The company is a subsidiary of eAccess, Japan's third largest Internet service provider.

Hardware

• Sharp Corp (SHCAY) announced that it will increase its thin-film Si (silicon) solar cell output at its Katsuragi Plant in Nara Prefecture from the present 15MW per year to 160MW per year by October 2008. The company said the investment for the project is estimated to be worth some 22 billion yen (US$198 million). Sharp is currently mass-producing tandem and triple thin-film solar cells in parallel at the Katsuragi Plant.

Semiconductors

• Toshiba Corp. and NEC Electronics Corp. (NELTY) announced their decision to jointly develop 32-nanometer chips but the two companies have yet to agree on the details of their joint production. Industry observers see the move of Toshiba and NEC as a response to the market competition and the performance of their rivals including IBM (IBM), Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (CHRT), Infineon Technologies (IFX), STMicroelectronics (STM), Samsung, and Freescale Semiconductor (FSL). Toshiba and NEC Electronics plan to mass produce 45-nanometer or 40-nanometer chips by early 2009. The two companies reportedly approached Fujitsu Ltd. (FJTSY)to join the group. No comment came from Fujitsu about the matter.
• Tokyo Electron [TEL], a supplier of semiconductor and FPD production equipment, and Integrated Materials, a developer of poly silicon furnace fixtures solution, announced their plans to jointly promote their furnace systems and SiFusion furnace consumables. Under the agreement, TEL will appoint IMI as a strategic supplier making IMI products as its preferred furnace consumables and has an exclusive right to use IMI’s SiFusion poly silicon furnace consumables for LPCVD Poly applications. It is expected that IMI’s SiFusion products will enable customers to improve TCO [Total Cost of Ownership] by reducing preventive maintenance [PM] cycles, and cleaning costs, while increasing furnace availability.

Telecommunications

• NTT Communications [NTT Com] and Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group [VNPT], a Vietnamese telecom operator, announced their entering into an agreement to form a joint-venture company, Global Data Service Joint Stock Company, in Hanoi in early January 2008. The company will provide data center service, making the NTT Com and VNPT among the first operators to provide said services in Vietnam. The data centers are expected to provide collocation and hosting services. The announcement also said that NTT Communications (Vietnam) and VNPT will work together to provide one-stop services covering networks, system integration and information security. Under the arrangement, NTT Com will take a 40 percent stake in the new venture, with VNPT owning the majority 60 percent stake.

Information Technology

• Sony Corp (SNE), Gourmet Navigator Inc, Dai Nippon Printing Co Ltd [DNP], Mitsui & Co Ltd (MITSY) and Tanseisha Co Ltd announced their entering into an agreement to establish the joint company, FeliCa Pocket Marketing for FeliCa contactless IC cards in January 2008. Under the agreement, Sony will provide 60 percent of its capital to the company to promote the use of FeliCa Pocket contactless IC card. The card has many different functions such as point card, coupons, membership, payment and stamp rally capabilities. The new company will also lease FeliCa Pocket terminals to member companies, as well as analyze and offer necessary marketing information in exchange for a service fee. With the agreement, the new company will have FeliCa Pocket terminals at more than 10,000 stores. With the aim of issuing more than 2 million cards over the next three years, the company has a sales goal of 2 billion yen (US$18 million) for the first three years.

Disclaimer: IRG is not responsible for the accuracy of the news compiled within this article, which is based on publicly available information.