Asian CE Makers Post Positive Financials

New York – Earnings season is in full swing today with
Asian-based consumer electronics manufacturers Panasonic, Samsung, Sony
and Fuji all reporting higher sales and profits for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

These performances not only come at a time when the world
economy is still sluggish, but Asian exporters, especially Japanese
manufacturers, have been struggling with exchange rates.

These financials are on top of reports from Asia by

LG
Electronics

and

Sharp
Electronics

,

Motorola

in the U.S. early yesterday and two from West Coast-based

Microsoft

and

Ingram
Micro

after the U.S. stock markets closed Thursday afternoon, all of which
had plenty of positive aspects.

Overnight

Panasonic

reported net sales at
2,206.8 billion yen, an increase of 27 percent over last year’s fiscal second
quarter. Net income was 31.0 billion yen for the quarter, up from last year’s
6.1 billion yen. Operating profit was 85.2 billion yen, up from the prior
year’s 49.1 billion yen.

At

Sony

sales
were 1,733.2 billion yen for
its fiscal second quarter, an increase of 4.3 percent year on year, primarily
due to an increase in sales in all segments other than Music, partially offset
by unfavorable foreign exchange rates.

Sony reported net income at 31.1 billion yen
compared to the prior year’s net loss of 26.3 billion yen. Operating income for
the quarter was 68.7 billion yen compared to an operating loss of 32.6 billion
yen year on year.

Samsung

reported a 17 percent increase in net earnings of 4.46 trillion won in its
third quarter ended Sept. 30. Net sales were 40.23 trillion won up 12 percent
and operating profit was 4.86 trillion won, up 15 percent.

Fujifilm’s

fiscal second quarter sales were 1,105 billion yen, up 5.9 percent from the
prior year’s second quarter. Fujifilm recorded 40.3 billion yen of income for
the quarter compared to the prior year’s 5.4 billion yen loss. Operating income
was 85.9 billion, another turnaround from the 8.6 billion yen operating loss in
the prior year’s fiscal second quarter.

There
will be further coverage on Panasonic, Sony, Samsung and Fujifilm financial results
to come on TWICE.com later today.