Money-losing Hitachi will focus on environment-related businesses, including hybrid railways and batteries for green cars, in its latest effort to return to profitability, its new president said Tuesday.
The electronics maker must use its sprawling assets in telecommunications and "social infrastructure," such as power systems and data management, to expand in businesses that "fuse these two technologies," including smart grids for cities and energy-efficient data centers, said Hiroaki Nakanishi, who became the company's president last Thursday.
Nuclear plants are another possible opportunity, he said. Details of his strategy are to be announced by the end of May.
Hitachi expects to remain in the red for the fiscal year that ended last month but is trying to cut costs and is raising money by issuing new shares.
"We will come back as a strong Hitachi," said Nakanishi, whose appointment in February was part of a managerial shakeup designed to move toward a recovery.
Hitachi, with 400,000 employees worldwide, has struggled with a bloated workforce and complex corporate structure with an array of subsidiaries. Over the years it has implemented various turnaround plans with little success.