Konica Minolta has acquired the facility and engineering assets from Panasonic Precision Devices of its industrial inkjet head business. Konica Minolta’s stated aim is to strengthen its own inkjet head business, including its R&D and production.
Konica Minolta will continue to support Panasonic’s existing customer, and has said that it also plans to expand the business with existing customers.
This acquisition gives Konica Minolta the MEMS technology and the piezoelectric (PZT: lead Zirconate Titanate) thin film mass production equipment from Panasonic. The hope is that this will help it widen its offerings to the emerging industrial printing industry, though honestly it’s hard to see how given that Konica Minolta already has similar technology.
Last month Konica Minolta released its figures for the year ending 31 March, showing profits up to 2.3 percent to ¥32,207 million or £217 million. Revenues were up 7.1 percent to ¥1,031,256m, or £6,968 million. Coincidentally, five years ago Konica Minolta also bought Panasonic Healthcare’s ultrasonic diagnostic equipment business.
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