Toyota to boost infotech weight
Toyota to boost infotech weight
TOKYO (Reuters): Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's largest automaker
and a budding investor in Internet businesses, said on Monday it
would set up an infotech research company with other Toyota group
firms.
The Toyota InfoTechnology Center Co Ltd, to be set up in
January, will be two-thirds owned by Toyota.
It will be capitalized at two billion yen ($18.77 million)
with plans to increase that to three billion by next April when a
U.S. unit in California's Silicon Valley is established.
The automaker is keen to develop next-generation mobile
technology that will go hand-in-hand with its efforts to develop
intelligent transport systems (ITS), automotive multimedia and e-
commerce businesses.
ITS includes technologies like electronic toll collection and
futuristic concepts such as vehicles that can drive themselves.
Toyota, the second-largest shareholder in new telecoms giant
KDDI -- to be created by the merger of three firms next month --
said the research firm would target Internet and mobile
technologies.
"Toyota views the information and communications business as
one of its major next-generation operations," the company said in
a statement.
Other investors include Toyota's main parts firm Denso Corp,
DDI Corp -- a key firm in the KDDI merger -- and chip and cell
phone maker Kyocera Corp, the main shareholder in KDDI. The size
of their holdings has not yet been decided.
The new company will have an initial 20 to 30 employees and be
involved in the development of new business models.
"While not a big money spinner in itself, the company is
likely to be central in pulling Toyota's disparate info-tech
interests together," said Mataso Ogasawara, auto analyst at the
Daiwa Institute of Research.
Toyota's shares closed up 60 yen or 1.48 percent at 4,110 yen
on Monday, after it raised its parent half-year profit forecast
on Friday. It did not revise up its forecast of 290 billion yen
parent net profit, citing weakness in the euro.
The company has a data telecommunications joint venture with
Sony Corp and has made several small investments in convenience
store e-commerce ventures and in a satellite communications firm.