|
 Chairman Zhao Weiguo also told Reuters in an interview in Beijing
that the company controlled by Tsinghua University, which counts
President Xi Jinping among its alumni, was in talks with a
U.S.-based company involved in the chip industry.
A deal could be finalised as early as the end of this month, he
said. He declined to give more details but said buying a majority
stake was unlikely as it was too "sensitive" for the U.S.
government.
"If you can't be the top-three giant, it will be very hard to
develop your business in the chip industry," Zhao said, citing
reports that China imported more chips than crude oil every year.
"The next five years is key... There is an enormous market out
there."
Currently, Qualcomm Inc holds the No.3 position in the global chip
rankings, behind Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and market leader
Intel Corp, which has a market capitalization of $151.5 billion.
The sheer size of Tsinghua Unigroup's planned investments is almost
equal to Intel's $50 billion chip revenue last year and could
disrupt the NAND chip industry. The top five chipmakers control more
than 90 percent of the global NAND chip market after years of
boom-and-bust squeezed out smaller players.
Tsinghua Unigroup's investment drive comes after a two-year
deal-making campaign to bolster China's fledgling chip industry,
seen as a strategic priority for the Chinese government.
Beijing is keen to end China's reliance on foreign semiconductors as
it seeks to build a modern, digitized armed forces capable of
matching other advanced militaries.
It has also attached strategic importance to the development of
domestic semiconductor, server and networking equipment industries
amid fears of foreign cyberspying.
Tsinghua Unigroup has spent more than $9.4 billion making
acquisitions and investments at home and abroad over the past two
years, including the purchase of stakes in U.S. data storage company
Western Digital Corp and Taiwan's Powertech Technology Inc.
In August, it made an informal $23 billion takeover offer for U.S.
giant Micron Technology Inc that was rejected out-of-hand by the
Idaho-based chipmaker amid concerns a deal might endanger national
security.
Tsinghua's failed bid to buy Micron suggests it is serious about
expanding in NAND chips, used for storing music, pictures and other
data on mobile devices.
[to top of second column] |
The global chip market was worth $355 billion last year, according
to research firm IHS Technology.
NO PLANS FOR DRAM
Tsinghua Unigroup, which had revenue last year of about 12.3 billion
yuan, was also in talks about cooperating with a "world-class memory
chip giant" to build a new chip factory in China, Zhao said, a move
that could help his company acquire intellectual property needed to
manufacture memory chips.
The 90-billion-yuan factory would help meet fast-growing demand of
NAND memory chips.
"We don't have plans for DRAM at the moment," Zhao said, referring
to dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips that are used mostly in
personal computers.
"We need to take one step at a time."
The company was also suspending plans to invest in Taiwanese tech
firms due to regulatory hurdles, after agreeing to take a stake in
Powertech Technology Inc <6239.TW> and expressing interest in more
cross-strait deals.
Industry analysts had expected Tsinghua Unigroup to make further
investment in Taiwan, sparking fears on the island that its chip
sector may fall prey to China's state-backed drive to become a
world-class player.
"The regulations do not allow it, so what's the point of talking (to
Taiwanese firms)?" Zhao said, adding that Tsinghua Unigroup was
focused on investing in the United States.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Paul Carsten; Editing by Stephen Coates)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
