Toyota to boost infotech weight<\/p>\n
TOKYO (Reuters): Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's largest automaker
\nand a budding investor in Internet businesses, said on Monday it
\nwould set up an infotech research company with other Toyota group
\nfirms.<\/p>\n
The Toyota InfoTechnology Center Co Ltd, to be set up in
\nJanuary, will be two-thirds owned by Toyota.<\/p>\n
It will be capitalized at two billion yen ($18.77 million)
\nwith plans to increase that to three billion by next April when a
\nU.S. unit in California's Silicon Valley is established.<\/p>\n
The automaker is keen to develop next-generation mobile
\ntechnology that will go hand-in-hand with its efforts to develop
\nintelligent transport systems (ITS), automotive multimedia and e-
\ncommerce businesses.<\/p>\n
ITS includes technologies like electronic toll collection and
\nfuturistic concepts such as vehicles that can drive themselves.<\/p>\n
Toyota, the second-largest shareholder in new telecoms giant
\nKDDI -- to be created by the merger of three firms next month --
\nsaid the research firm would target Internet and mobile
\ntechnologies.<\/p>\n
\"Toyota views the information and communications business as
\none of its major next-generation operations,\" the company said in
\na statement.<\/p>\n
Other investors include Toyota's main parts firm Denso Corp,
\nDDI Corp -- a key firm in the KDDI merger -- and chip and cell
\nphone maker Kyocera Corp, the main shareholder in KDDI. The size
\nof their holdings has not yet been decided.<\/p>\n
The new company will have an initial 20 to 30 employees and be
\ninvolved in the development of new business models.<\/p>\n
\"While not a big money spinner in itself, the company is
\nlikely to be central in pulling Toyota's disparate info-tech
\ninterests together,\" said Mataso Ogasawara, auto analyst at the
\nDaiwa Institute of Research.<\/p>\n
Toyota's shares closed up 60 yen or 1.48 percent at 4,110 yen
\non Monday, after it raised its parent half-year profit forecast
\non Friday. It did not revise up its forecast of 290 billion yen
\nparent net profit, citing weakness in the euro.<\/p>\n
The company has a data telecommunications joint venture with
\nSony Corp and has made several small investments in convenience
\nstore e-commerce ventures and in a satellite communications firm.<\/p>",
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