Key facts
- Former Sharp President Katsuhiko Machida believes the company has lost its focus on new, unique products since Foxconn's 2016 acquisition.
- Consolidated sales have fallen by more than 20% in the ten years since Foxconn took over.
- Research and development spending has been cut by nearly half.
- Sharp's global market share for TV LCD panels has dropped from 28% to 7%.
- The large Sakai panel factory has been converted into an AI data center.
Ten years after Taiwan's Foxconn acquired Japanese electronics maker Sharp, former President and Chairman Katsuhiko Machida has expressed a negative view of the period, citing a departure from the company's historical focus on developing new and unique products. Machida attributes this shift to differing corporate mindsets between a contract manufacturer like Foxconn and a design-focused company such as Sharp.
Financial figures paint a stark picture of the decade under Foxconn's ownership. Consolidated sales have shrunk by over 20%, falling from 2.4615 trillion yen to 1.8928 trillion yen. Similarly, research and development spending has been nearly halved, decreasing from 141 billion yen to 76.3 billion yen. Sharp's once dominant global market share for TV LCD panels has plummeted from 28% to just 7%. The significant Sakai panel factory, a symbol of Sharp's past ambitions, has been repurposed into an AI data center.
The acquisition in 2016 was initially hailed as a 'Japan-Taiwan Alliance,' intended to merge Japanese technological expertise with Taiwanese manufacturing scale and speed. However, the results have fallen short of expectations, raising questions about the effectiveness of capital replacement strategies in rebuilding technology industries.