Panasonic Corp widened its annual net-loss forecast to a record ￥780 billion (US$10.2 billion), making it the latest Japanese electronics company to predict declining earnings because of Thai floods and a slow economy.
The revision, which includes restructuring charges, compares with the ￥420 billion loss Panasonic predicted in October last year. The loss in the 12 months ending next month will be the biggest since Osaka-based Panasonic was founded in 1918, exceeding the ￥427.8 billion in March 2002.
The world’s largest manufacturer of plasma TVs joins domestic peers Sony Corp and Sharp Corp in increasing loss forecasts as they struggle to cope with a slow global economy that is hurting sales after the Thai floods and the March 11 earthquake in Japan crippled plants and suppliers. Panasonic booked a ￥290 billion charge for goodwill writedown, with ￥250 billion stemming from its purchase of Sanyo Electric Co.
Photo: Reuters
“The consumer electronics business and components business are below the company’s plan due to weaker fundamentals and a stronger yen,” Jeff Loff, a senior analyst with Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo, said before the announcement.
Operating profit will likely total ￥30 billion in the year ending next month, compared with the company’s previous forecast of ￥130 billion, Panasonic said. The company cut its forecast of annual revenue to ￥8 trillion from ￥8.3 trillion.
The company cuts its capital expenditures plan to ￥300 billion from ￥320 billion.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported a net loss of ￥197.6 billion, compared with the ￥3 billion average of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The maker of Viera televisions and Lumix cameras halted operations in October at its three factories in Thailand making home appliances and other products following the nation’s worst floods in 70 years. The world’s No. 4 TV maker cut its annual sales target to 18 million sets.
The company is boosting output and buying more parts overseas as gains in the yen make it more expensive to manufacture in Japan.
Global liquid-crystal-display TV shipments probably gained 8 percent to 206 million units last year, falling short of an earlier projection of 211 million units, according to an October forecast by DisplaySearch. The shipments rose 13 percent in the quarter ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, according to the researcher, which estimates annual shipments to rise 10 percent this year.
Panasonic will invest ￥45 billion to build a plant for solar cells and modules in Malaysia, the company said in November. The company, which also makes microwave ovens, rice cookers and cordless drills, is shifting its procurement base to Singapore from Osaka to buy more parts in Asia.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS