Texas Instruments expects Japan growth

TOKYO (AP) — Texas Instruments expects solid growth in Japan, where the U.S. computer chip maker can count on surging demand for super-fast cell phones and digital TVs, the company's Japan unit president said Friday.

Texas Instruments Inc.'s strength in Japan comes from its partnership with the nation's major electronics makers and working together on developing products, said Toshiyuki Yamasaki, appointed president earlier this month.

Dallas-based TI recorded 323.9 billion yen (US$3 billion; euro2.34 billion) in sales in Japan for the fiscal year ending December 2004, a record high for the Japan operation, he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.

The company declined to give yen forecasts but said market share here will rise through its strength in processors for high-end cell phones, as well as for chips used in digital TVs and other electronic gadgets that Japanese manufacturers are developing, Yamasaki said.

The world's top electronics makers, including NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, are Japanese, and they are all planning new products that link to the Internet.

Texas Instruments' OMAP processor, used for more sophisticated applications such as video games and streaming video increasingly popular in cell phones here, are now in every third-generation handset from NTT DoCoMo, Japan's top mobile carrier, according to Texas Instruments.

Third-generation phones struggled at the start, but Japanese using NTT DoCoMo's 3G service now total more than 11.5 million people.

Last month, TI lowered its first quarter profit and sales outlook because of lower-than-expected demand for its display technology used in televisions and projectors called Digital Light Processing. TI Chief Executive Richard Templeton said in Tokyo that's temporary and demand for DLP is expected to grow.

TI, whose first quarter ends March 31, expects earnings per share to reach between 22 cents and 24 cents. The previous forecast range was 22 cents to 26 cents. It expects total revenue between US$2.91 billion and US$3.03 billion, compared with the prior range of US$2.9 billion to US$3.14 billion.