The following appears on nbcnews.com
(Reuters) – Sharp Corp, Japan’s largest display maker, has called off talks with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to jointly set up a copier sales company, the Kyodo said.
Sharp’s decision came after other Japanese firms such as Canon Inc opposed the proposal expressing concern that key technology would fall into the hands of the South Korean technology giant, the newswire said.
The global copier market is dominated by Japanese companies like Canon, Ricoh Co Ltd, Konica Minolta Inc and Sharp. They, along with U.S’s Xerox Corp, account for about 80 percent of the global A3 copier sales, according to Kyodo.
Sharp, will however, continue talks with Samsung to supply washing machines and refrigerators to the Korean company as an original equipment manufacturer, the wire said, quoting sources.
The proposal to jointly set up a copier sales company was being discussed after Sharp turned down Samsung’s acquisition offer for the copier business, Kyodo said.
When looking at the operating income for the 1st quarter, the shining star of the Sharps Product groups is the Business Solutions group which sell information displays and MFPs. There is no breakdown of sales for that Product group, thus I can't tell how much of the revenue was for copiers and how much for displays. I'm not sure but I believe the information displays is the IGZO LCD screens that are used with the Apple ipad and iphones. The Business Solutions product group carried a 20% percent increase in sales when compared to the firs quarter of 2012.