TOKYO, February 8: Hitachi Ltd is expected to post a group net profit of about 30 billion yen for the current business year to March 31, down 70 per cent from a year earlier mainly due to the sluggish semiconductor market, the daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Sunday.A Hitachi spokesman was not available to comment on the report.
The revised forecast marks a sharp fall from Hitachi's initial projection of 89 billion yen, the paper said.
Losses at Hitachi's semiconductor division are swelling, reflecting a plunge in prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, it said.
Sales of consumer electronics, such as air conditioners and refrigerators, also stalled, it said. While sales of large computers have been brisk, they have fallen short of offsetting the poor performance of semiconductor and consumer electronics, it said.
Hitachi had initially anticipated a foreign exchange loss of about 20 billion yen due to the depreciation of south-east Asian currencies against the US dollar.
Theloss is now expected to widen by 10 billion yen or more, as the value of south-east Asian currencies has fallen further, the NihonKeizai said. Other Japanese computer and chip makers have similar announcements in the last month, all due to slow semiconductor sales. Fujitsu predicted on Friday that its group profit will fall by 80 per cent this business year, while in January NEC predicted a 51 per cent drop in its group net profit Toshiba also projected an 85 per cent drop in its group net profits.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
