Sharp Corp said on Tuesday it aims for 10 percent profit growth in the year starting in April as it brings forward a planned capacity expansion at its flagship LCD panel plant and drives LCD TV sales in China.

Sharp now plans to boost capacity at the western Japan plant by 50 percent by July, compared with its original plan for the ramp-up by the end of the year, and said it is aiming for LCD TV sales of at least 10 million sets in the 2008/09 business year. That would be up from an estimated 9 million this year.

In revenue terms, it aims for at least 1 trillion yen ($9.15 billion) in LCD TV sales in 2008/09, up from an 850 billion yen target for the current business year to March.

Underscoring the importance of securing enough display panels, rival Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd said it may miss its target of selling 9 million flat TVs in the year to March due in part to tight supplies of LCD panels.

Sharp, the world's third-largest LCD TV maker behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Sony Corp, said output capacity at its Kameyama No.2 plant will be raised to 90,000 motherglass sheets a month by July, or to the equivalent of 1.35 million 32-inch panels.

Total capacity at the No.1 and 2 plants in Kameyama, two Sharp factories for making large-sized LCD (liquid crystal display) panels, will be equivalent to 1.8 million 32-inch panels per month.

"We need to carefully watch the potential impact of the ongoing changes in the global economy on our business ... But we expect substantial demand to be stirred up by the Beijing Olympic Games," Sharp President Mikio Katayama told a news conference.

By: DocMemory
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