OSAKA —

Panasonic Corp said Tuesday it has broken its fiscal first-half net profit record for the first time in 23 years. Panasonic, which changed its name from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co at the start of this month, scored a net profit of 128,492 million yen for the six months through September, up 22.2% from the same period last year.

First-half operating profit rose 3.7% to 228,154 million yen, logging year-on-year growth for the seventh straight year. But sales dropped 4% to 4,343,711 million yen, losing ground for the first time in three years.

Shipments of plasma display panel television sets soared 58% to 2.71 million units. Liquid crystal display TVs were up 52% at 2.17 million units.

Sales at the division handling digital audio, video and communications equipment rose 2% to 2,102.9 billion yen thanks to increased demand boosted by the Beijing Olympic Games.

The home appliance division saw its sales rise 3% to 685.5 billion yen, as sales in China and other Asian markets grew. In Japan, air conditioners sold well, officials said.

Meanwhile, the electronic device division incurred a 6% sales drop to 670.2 billion yen due to sluggish sales of electronic parts.

Panasonic managed to offset the impact of foreign exchange and material price fluctuations through cost cuts and rationalization, the officials said.

The company kept unchanged its earnings forecasts for the full year ending in March 2009, saying that it is extremely difficult to make precise forecasts because stock and currency markets are extremely volatile

For the year, net profit is estimated at 310 billion yen, up 10% from the previous year. Operating profit should rise 7.8% to 560 billion yen, on sales of 9.2 trillion yen, up 1.4%.

A senior Panasonic official expressed his confidence that the company will be able to achieve its fiscal 2008 flat-panel TV sales target of some 11 million units.

JCN

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