Toshiba plant to make LCD panels for Apple: report

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp will spend about 100 billion yen ($1.19 billion) to build a factory for making small LCD panels, mainly to supply to Apple Inc's iPhones, the Nikkei business daily said.

The company's wholly owned unit, Toshiba Mobile Display Co, will construct the facility in Ishikawa prefecture and the plant will churn out low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels, which allow for high-resolution images, the paper said.

Work on the plant will start by early next year, with the production due to begin in the second half of 2011, Nikkei said.

Toshiba Mobile Display already makes low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels at a facility in the prefecture and its monthly production capacity of 8.55 million units is projected to more than double with the new factory, the daily said.

Apple will invest in a portion of the investment for the factory, the Nikkei said.

($1=83.96 Yen)

(Reporting by NR Sethuraman in Bangalore; Editing by S. John Tilak)