Asian stocks tumbled for a second day, with South Korea’s market sinking more than 8%, as a barrage of downbeat company forecasts deepened fears of a global recession.

NEC Corp has unveiled a prototype cellphone that is to allow users to watch digital television.

NEC Corp and Toshiba Corp have agreed to jointly develop next-generation magnetic random access memory chips, which are expected to greatly reduce power consumption for personal computers, cellular phones and other portable electronic devices, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported, citing sources at the companies.

Hitachi is reportedly set to slash 20,000 jobs because of falling worldwide demand.

After Wall Street was pummelled by a sell-off, stock markets in Asia fell sharply today, with heavy losses in Japan, where concern is high over how a fragile government will deal with weaknesses in the world’s second-largest economy.