Toyota Motor Corporation and NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) have signed an agreement on a business capital alliance on March 24 with the aim of building a long-term and continuous collaborative relationship that enables the commercialization of smart city businesses. Announced.
In March 2017, the two companies agreed to collaborate on research and development of ICT infrastructure for connected cars, and have continued to collaborate in the field of connected cars. However, in response to changes in the business environment, it is necessary not only to strengthen the business foundation that we have cultivated so far, but also to work on creating new value that enables sustainable growth by further building a cooperative relationship between the two companies. Matches in recognition.
Above all, by utilizing advanced technology, we will improve the efficiency and sophistication of functions and services in cities and regions, solve various problems, and create new value including comfort and convenience in the "smart city business". , It is said that it has begun to work on it as one of the important areas to focus on in the future.
To this end, Toyota announced "Woven City," an initiative aimed at realizing smart cities, at "CES 2020" held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in January. The NTT Group is also collaborating with local governments and companies such as Fukuoka, Sapporo, Yokohama, and Chiba to solve various problems in cities, and in July 2019, NTT Urban Solutions was established to promote smart town development.
While the two companies are advancing these efforts, in order to maximize the effects of problem solving and value improvement by smart cities, and to lead to the improvement of regional power and national power, not only each company will work on individual projects, but both companies will work together. It was decided that it was necessary to jointly build and operate a "smart city platform," which is the core foundation for realizing smart cities, and to deploy it in a chain reaction to various cities in Japan and overseas. It is said that it has reached a business and capital alliance.
The outline of the smart city platform is the following two points.
1) As a secure foundation for providing value to residents, companies, local governments, etc., it consists of smart city data management and information distribution, digital twins (town development simulation) based on these, and their peripheral functions.
2) We have a platform of platform as a platform for cooperation with individual smart city platforms and other smart city platforms.
In the outline of the investment, Toyota acquired 80,775,400 shares of NTT's common stock (ownership ratio of about 2.07% of the total number of issued shares, totaling about 200 billion yen) by disposing of treasury stock through third-party allotment implemented by NTT. In addition, Toyota acquired 29,739,900 shares of Toyota's common stock (ownership ratio of approximately 0.90% of the total number of issued shares, totaling approximately 200 billion yen) through the disposal of treasury stock by third-party allotment implemented by Toyota. The stock acquisition date (payment date) is April 9, and each will invest approximately 200 billion yen.