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.
