TI, NEC and Panasonic Consider JV

According to the Nikkei, top mobile phone chip supplier Texas Instruments Inc., NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. are in talks over possible cooperation in cellphones, Matsushita and NEC said on Friday. NEC’s chip unit, NEC Electronics Corp., and the cellphone unit of Matsushita, Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., are involved in the talks, they said, adding that nothing concrete has been decided. 

Comments by Matsushita and NEC, Japan’s two largest cellphone makers, come after a report by business daily Nihon Keizai that the five firms will set up a mobile phone components venture in Japan as early as this summer.

The new entity will likely be capitalized at around 10 billion yen ($84.9 million), with NEC and Panasonic Mobile Communications Co each taking a stake of about 30 percent, while Matsushita, Texas Instruments and NEC Electronics will equally split the rest, the paper said. Continue>>