Sharp lost ¥376B on LCDs — Foxconn bought control for $3.5B in 2016

Sharp Corporation was a Japanese electronics icon — inventor of the first LCD calculator in 1973 and a pioneer in LCD panel technology. In the 2000s, Sharp bet heavily on LCD manufacturing, building the Kameyama Plant (2004) and the Sakai Plant (2009), one of the world's most advanced LCD panel facilities. The strategy assumed that demand for LCD televisions would keep growing and that Sharp's technological edge would protect its margins.

By 2012 that bet had collapsed. The 2008 financial crisis and a strong yen sharply reduced global demand for Japanese LCD panels. Japan's transition to digital TV broadcasting, which ended in July 2011, had been artificially boosting LCD TV sales through government-issued purchase coupons — once the switchover completed, the domestic LCD TV market shrank by nearly half. Sharp's Sakai plant ran at reduced capacity through 2012. In April 2012, Sharp announced the worst loss in its 100-year history: ¥376 billion (US$4.7 billion).

In March 2012, Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision Industry) had agreed to buy a 10% stake in Sharp for US$806 million, but Sharp's share price kept falling and the deal fell apart. In February 2016, Foxconn returned with an offer to buy a 66% controlling stake for ¥700 billion (US$6.24 billion). Sharp's board accepted, but the deal was delayed when Foxconn uncovered unexpected liabilities (including ¥350 billion in contingent liabilities). The final price was renegotiated to US$3.5 billion — roughly half the original offer.

The acquisition closed in August 2016. Foxconn's restructuring — including cost cuts, procurement integration, and management changes — quickly turned Sharp around. By April 2017, Sharp reported its first operating profit in three years. The rescue preserved a Japanese brand while demonstrating that a global supply-chain giant could do what Sharp's own management could not: stabilise the business. The case became a landmark of Japanese corporate restructuring, where a national champion accepted foreign control at a deep discount.