The Nikkan Kogyo newspaper said on Friday that Sony (NYSE:SONY) Group Corp. is thinking about spending about $5.83 billion to build a factory in western Japan to make image sensors for smartphones. The factory would cost about 800 billion yen.
The report said that the plant would be in Kumamoto Prefecture and that Sony plans to open it as soon as 2025. The Nikkei business daily was the first to report the news, but it didn’t say how much was invested.
The Nikkei said that the Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate would carefully consider when to start building and how much to invest, given worries about a slowdown in the world economy.
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A spokesman for Sony’s semiconductor division did not respond to the Nikkei report.
After the COVID-19 pandemic messed up global supply chains, major economies like the United States and Japan rushed to make more chips at home.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is building a big chip plant in Kumamoto. Sony and the company that makes auto parts, Denso Corp., are both investing a small amount of money in the $8.6 billion project.
The Nikkei said that Sony plans to get logic chips for image sensors from the TSMC plant. ($1=137.31 yen)
