Panasonic Reports Lower Sales, Net Loss

By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 2/3/2012

Osaka, Japan - Panasonic reported a 14 percent drop in sales and a major net loss in its fiscal third quarter, ended Dec. 31, 2011.

The company is also forecasting a major net loss for the entire fiscal year, which ends March 31.

Like other Japanese CE manufacturers that have reported their financials in recent days, Panasonic's culprits for the negative results included sagging TV sales and lower prices, the aftereffects of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the flooding in Thailand that hurt the supply chain, the appreciation of the yen, and an overall sluggish world economy.

In the fiscal third quarter net sales were 1,960,200 million yen, down from the prior year's fiscal third quarter of 2,285,413. The net loss attributable to Panasonic in the quarter was 197,668 million yen, compared with the prior year's net income of 39,983 million yen.

In its digital AVC networks segment, for the first nine months of the year sales decreased by 16 percent to 2,182.9 billion yen, from 2,585.4 billion yen a year ago. This was due mainly to sales declines in flat-panel TVs and mobile phones. Segment loss amounted to 32.7 billion yen, compared with segment profit of 101.2 billion yen a year ago, due mainly to sales decrease and price decline.

Sanyo's 47 billion yen loss in the first nine months of the fiscal year, compared with a segment profit of 0.4 billion yen a year ago, was influenced by sales decrease, after incurring the expenses such as amortization of intangible assets recorded at the acquisition, Panasonic said. Sales decreased by 20 percent to 974.1 billion yen, compared with 1,223 billion yen a year ago.

For the entire fiscal year Panasonic is forecasting a net loss of 780 billion yen, down from the previous forecast of a loss of 420 billion yen, and revised its previous sales forecast of 8,300 billion yen downward to 8,000 billion yen because of significant sales declines in mainly digital products.

Operating profit is expected to be 30.0 billion yen, a decrease from the previous forecast of 130 billion yen.