TECHNOLOGY Japan's Toshiba to invest about 200 billion yen a year in chip business

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp will maintain an annual investment of around 200 billion yen ($1.9 billion) into its chip business beyond the current business year, Chief Executive Hisao Tanaka said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of its chip fabrication plant No. 5 in Yokkaichi, western Japan, Tanaka also said the company was seeking operating profit of more than 200 billion yen in the current year, which ends in March 2015.

Tanaka said boosting sales and profit in Toshiba's semiconductor unit was a greater priority than becoming No. 1 in the NAND flash memory chip market, where Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is currently top, ahead of Toshiba.

Toshiba built Fab No. 5 along with chip partner SanDisk Corp, splitting the cost evenly. Tanaka said that most of the 200 billion yen the company had earmarked for investment in its chip business this year would be spent on Yokkaichi.

(Reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)


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