Asahi Glass Co. has decided to increase its production capacity of glass substrates used in PDPs (Plasma Display Panels). For this purpose, the Company will make an initial investment of about 15BN yen in the old site of Osaka Power Plant of Kansai Electric Power Co,(Suminoe-ku, Osaka City) & establish a new plant for processing large PDP glass substrates. Asahi Glass plans to start construction of the new plant late summer/06 & start mass production of large PDP glass substrates May/07. PDP panel volume is forecast to rise to 17M units in 2009 (9.8M/06), demonstrating annual growth of about 20% Asahi predicts that the sizes of glass substrates will become increasingly larger, while demand for PDP glass substrates will continue to rise significantly in the future.
