Toshiba to outsource chip making

Toshiba is in talks with Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor and Globalfoundries about outsourcing production of some of its next-generation system chips to help cut costs, two company sources said, according to Reuters.

Toshiba, which sources have said plans to bid for French nuclear group Areva's power transmission and distribution unit, is looking to save costs at its loss-making chip division as it seeks stabler revenues from the power business.

The world's no 2 maker of NAND flash memory chips plans to make 28-nanometre chips at its plant in Oita, southern Japan, but is considering contracting out production of chips exceeding its capacity, said company spokeswoman Hiroko Mochida.

Revenues from the Malaysian IT outsourcing industry are expected to reach $1.1 billion in 2009, according to a joint publication by Outsourcing Malaysia and ValueNotes, states Sourcingfocus.com.

The industry is also expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% to reach $1.9 billion by 2013.

Currently, IT outsourcing services in Malaysia have a greater share of the overall outsourcing market, followed by BPO services; while knowledge services outsourcing, still in its nascent stage, has a smaller share.

Procurement outsourcing ranks among the fastest shifting service lines to offshore providers with over 77% of large-scale arrangements and 485 of midmarket and small cap deals transitioning to India-based vendors, new research reveals, says Procurement Leaders News.

Indian outsourcers commanded the highest satisfaction levels of all global procurement outsourcing suppliers for a second consecutive year, according to the Black Book of Outsourcing, produced by a division of Datamonitor.

The research firm's annual poll of customer satisfaction and client experience went on to show that post-recession outsourcing is making a niche-by-niche comeback lead by procurement business process outsourcing.