Sharp Corp said yesterday it returned to the black in the fiscal year to March with a net profit of ¥4.4 billion (US$46.7 million) on strong sales of LCD screens in Japan.
The consumer electronics giant, whose products range from cellphones to home appliances, said company-wide cost-cutting measures helped it back to profit after a loss of ¥125.8 billion in the previous fiscal year.
Japan’s top manufacturer of LCD TVs, marketed under the AQUOS brand, said it expected a net profit of ¥50 billion for the current fiscal year ending in March 2011.
For the full fiscal year it posted an operating profit of ¥51.9 billion, compared with a loss of ¥55.4 billion yen a year ago. It also forecast a 12.5 percent increase in revenue year-on-year to ¥3.1 trillion, after seeing it slip 3.2 percent to ¥2.75 trillion in the year just ended.
Sharp’s results come as recovering consumer demand and corporate investment lift the technology sector, from consumer electronics to semiconductors. It has benefited from a large increase in television sales in Japan, thanks to consumer subsidies offered by the government to renew appliances in favor of more environmentally friendly models.
Sharp said sales to China were also robust, its first overseas market for a solar-powered mobile phone launched last year which comes equipped with solar cells, a 2.9-inch LCD screen and a 5-megapixel camera.
Earlier this month the Japanese electronics giant said it would begin selling 3D televisions before the summer, as competition in the sector intensifies.
Sharp says its new sets will incorporate the world’s first four primary-color 3D displays, adding a yellow component to the traditional standard of red, green and blue to create brighter and more defined images.
“The company will expand its business of LCD TVs by introducing the 3D technology,” Sharp vice president Toshishige Hamano said at a press conference yesterday, adding that the company expects to produce 15 million units in the current fiscal year.
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