Panasonic books : $390 mn quarterly loss

Japan's Panasonic on Thursday reported a $390 million net loss for the April-June quarter, citing the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami on production. The major consumer electronics and home appliance maker booked a net loss of 30.4 billion yen for the three months, compared with a net profit of 43.7 billion yen a year earlier. Its operating profit for the quarter plunged 93.3 percent to 5.6 billion yen on revenue of 1.9 trillion yen, down 10.7 percent. Panasonic said the slump was mainly due to the disaster, which ravaged Japan's northeast coast and left some 20,000 dead or missing. The tsunami crippled a nuclear power plant, leading to reactor meltdowns and power shortages that along with supply chain problems sent Japanese production levels plunging as the economy tipped into a technical recession. Osaka-based Panasonic left unchanged its annual forecast issued in June, still expecting to post a net profit of 30 billion yen this fiscal year to March 2012, down from 74 billion yen a year earlier. Panasonic has said it expects to incur a group net loss of 70 billion yen in the first half. The firm has been busy streamlining operations. In April Panasonic said it aimed to cut its global workforce to 350,000 within two years, a reduction of about 17,000 positions, in a bid to streamline its operations. The planned job cuts will mean roughly a 10 percent reduction from March 2010, when Panasonic had almost 385,000 employees. News reports said Thursday that Panasonic was soon to announce a plan to sell subsidiary Sanyo Electric's washing machine and refrigerator operations in Asia to China's Haier Group. Sanyo will sell all its shareholdings in about 10 subsidiaries and affiliates in Japan and Southeast Asia, the Nikkei business daily reported. The sale price is estimated at about 10 billion yen, the newspaper said, adding that it would be China's first buyout of key operations from a major Japanese manufacturer. The firms to be sold to Haier currently develop, manufacture and sell washing machines and refrigerators -- known as white goods -- with combined annual revenue of some 70 billion yen, the newspaper said. The deal is scheduled to be completed by March next year, the Nikkei said, adding that 2,000 employees of the firms are expected to be transferred to Haier. Panasonic declined to confirm the report. Since becoming a Panasonic subsidiary in late 2009, Sanyo has been working to jettison businesses that overlap with those of its parent.