NTN
Corporation (Japan) and Nidec Corporation (Japan) recently
suspended their plan to build a new joint venture factory
to produce hydrodynamic bearing disk drive motors in the
Philippines. Instead, the companies have just announced
they will now build that factory in Zhejiang, China.
The
joint venture was announced in November 2001 and was to
have been well underway by now. Instead, NTN-Nidec Philippines
Corp. is being dissolved.
An
NTN spokesman said the decision to build in China was made
for them; their major customers have shifted disk drive
production to China at an unexpectedly rapid rate. NTN and
Nidec had no choice but to follow, citing lower procurement
and operating costs, along with the need to be physically
closer to their customers.
The
two companies' joint venture, now NTN-Nidec Zhejiang Corporation
(China), is being set up and the factory is expected to
come online sometime during first quarter 2003. NTN owns
60% and Nidec 40% of the total initial capitalization of
￥1.6 billion.
The
plant's initial production capacity will be two million
fluid dynamic bearing spindle motors per month, ramping
up to five million per month within a year.
The
newest generation of computer disk drives uses spindle motors
with fluid film or hydrodynamic bearings for improved performance
over the previous generation of ball bearings. NTN was a
key vendor of miniature precision ball bearings for disk
drives, a market now all but gone.
The
joint venture factory will produce fluid dynamic bearing
motors designed by NTN and engineered to use their proprietary
sintered metals technology.
Nidec
is already building one plant on its own in China to produce
fluid bearing disk drive motors. The factory, also in Zhejiang
Province, is the company's eighth but its first in China.
Named Nidec Zhejiang Corporation, construction began in
April with production ramp-up scheduled for early October
2002. The company expects to spend USD $200 million on the
factory, and projects it will employ over 10,000 workers
by 2004.
Nidec
has over 70% share of the world market for computer disk
drive motors. It manufactures fluid dynamic bearings for
its precision motors at four plants in Thailand, one in
Singapore and two in the Philippines. The two factories
in China will be its eighth and ninth. (Adopted From EBEARING)
