Long Term Collaboration with Philips EMT in Surface Mounter Field Extended Six More Years

Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. and Holland's Philips Electronics Manufacturing Technology B.V. (Philips EMT) have been involved in a collaboration for the product supply, development and sales of surface mounters since 1988. With the expiration of the present contract approaching in March 31, 2000, an agreement has been made to extend the contract another six years to March 31, 2006, and further strengthen the collaborative relationship.

A fully owned subsidiary of Holland's Royal Philips Electronics N.V., Philips EMT has been a leader in the surface mounter field since its emergence, with its business based primarily in Europe. In the field of mass manufacturing-use super-high speed surface mounters it is recognized as having the most advanced technology in the world. On the other hand, Yamaha Motor has been involved in the technological development of manufacturing-use robots since 1 974 and based on this experience has developed mid-speed surface mounters for small-volume, high-mix production, which the company began manufacturing and marketing in 1987.

As a result of Philips EMT's need for mid-speed surface mounters to compliment its high-speed mounters in its printed circuit board mounter line and Yamaha Motor's need to expand its market to Europe and the Americas, the two companies reached an agreement in 1988 for surface mounters manufactured by Yamaha to be supplied to Philips on an OEM basis. In the eleven years since, the cooperative relationship between the two companies has continued to grow to include not only the supply of products but the mutual exchange of technologies, product planning and joint development based on new market needs and even exchange of information and cooperation in the field of sales as well.

As of October 1998, the total number of surface mounter units supplied by Yamaha to Philips EMT exceeded the 2,000 mark. The newly extended contract contains agreements for further expansion of the cooperative relationship to include strengthening of the collaboration in the area of product development and software development, strengthening of sales networks in the European and North American markets and expanded sales to Japanese corporations with operations in Europe and the Americas with the aim of increasing the market share for Yamaha-made surface mounters in the respective markets. The signing of the new contract was conducted by Mr. Cor Scholten, President of Philips EMT and Mr. Tsuneji Togami, Senior General Manager of Yamaha Motor's IM Operations at the IM head office in Hamamatsu City.

Yamaha surface mounters are manufactured at the company's Soude factory (Hamamatsu City) as one of the main products of Yamaha's IM Operations. As the leading mid-speed surface mounter maker in Japan, Yamaha manufactures and markets both domestically and internationally a line of models including the new model module-type high-speed YV100X and YV88X as well as a Full Vision series lineup, dispenser and reflow machines,. and a variety of electronic component supply systems necessary for an efficient practical mounter production line set-up.

Royal Philips Electronics (headquarters: The Netherlands) is one of the world's largest electronics companies with 1998 net sales of US$ 33.9 billion. Philips is a global leader in the fields of TVs, lighting fixtures, home telephone related products, shavers and recordings (polygram) and employs approximately 230,000 people over 60 countries in its lighting fixture, public-use electronics, electrical parts, semiconductor and industrial machine businesses. Its stock is listed on the New York, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and ot her stock exchanges. For news from Philips access www.news.philips.com