Panasonic headed for record $10 bln annual loss

Panasonic headed for record $10 bln annual loss

TOKYO, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Japan's Panasonic Corp forecast a record annual net loss of $10.2 billion on Friday, joining beleaguered rivals Sony and Sharp in a sea of red ink as they struggle to fix their broken TV businesses and overcome criticism that they have lost their way.

Panasonic said it was headed for a loss of 780 billion yen ($10.24 billion) for the year to March, dwarfing expectations for a loss of around $6.2 billion. The loss was almost entirely due to big restructuring charges and writedowns, including to its Sanyo Electric unit.

Its grim outlook follows loss forecasts at Sony and Sharp Corp - almost $17 billion combined for the three Japanese electronics firms - highlighting the impact of fierce competition from foreign rivals such as South Korea's Samsung Electronics, weak demand and a strong yen.

Panasonic, which is in the process of shedding 17,000 jobs by end-March, also missed third-quarter market forecasts, diving to a loss of 197.6 billion yen from a profit a year earlier.

With TVs becoming smart - linked to other devices like tablets and smartphones - an inability to win in the TV market risks hobbling sales across their consumer electronics line-up.

"They don't seem like a company that's progressing towards a particular goal," said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO and president of Fukoku Capital, which managed assets worth $7.6 billion as of last March. "What exactly is this company good at? What does it want to do? They don't have answers to these questions."

Makoto Kikuchi, CEO of Myojo Asset Management in Tokyo, noted Panasonic, Sharp and Sony all have structural issues, and need to come to grips with problems in their TV businesses.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Panasonic President Fumio Ohtsubo gave no indication he planned to ditch the TV business.

"I don't think it's a business that has lost its growth potential," he said, adding Panasonic wanted to "develop TV in a different manner" by exploring growth in sales to businesses rather than direct to consumers.

The near-term outlook for better TV sales is grim.

By 2015, flat panel industry research company DisplaySearch expects annual global sales of liquid crystal TVs to contract by 8 percent to $92 billion. Even worse, plasma sets, a market that Panasonic dominates, will shrink 38 percent to $7 billion.

If Panasonic's market share "keeps shrinking by 10 percent or so they may need to prepare some more restructuring," said Shiro Mikoshiba, analyst at Nomura Holdings in Tokyo.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded the debt ratings of Panasonic and Sony last month and retained a negative outlook for both, citing their continued losses on TVs.


It's not only the TV unit, however, that poses a risk to profits and is keeping investors away from Panasonic shares, say analysts.

Panasonic shares initially fell on Friday, extending a slide to their lowest in more than 30 years, but later rallied to close 1.2 percent higher ahead of the quarterly results.

"One silver lining is that there is investment being made for the future," said Hiroyuki Fukunaga, CEO of Investrust.

"You could take the added restructuring costs as a serious move by the company to reform and improve its business. You could look at this as the bottom, to show all the losses and then move aggressively towards the next quarter," he said.

Sony on Thursday pressed its reset button by announcing that Kazuo Hirai will succeed Howard Stringer as CEO in April, sparking an 8 percent surge in its share price on Friday, its biggest one-day percentage gain in almost a year.

Ohtsubo, who like Stringer at Sony, has called the shots at Panasonic for the past six years, has so far shown no intent to step aside.

"Its last record net loss in 2001/02 was because of the impact of a sudden slump in PCs after the IT bubble burst, but there was hope then for growth in flat-screen TVs," said Hideyuki Suzuki, general manager investment research at SBI Securities.

"This time, and not just for Panasonic, it doesn't feel like they've got rid of all the rot."


SANYO DRAG

Buying Sanyo was part of a strategy to focus Panasonic more on business-to-business markets such as car parts and green technologies, rather than selling to more fickle retail consumers.

Panasonic makes everthing from refrigerators and bicycle pumps to fax machines, light bulbs and nose hair trimmers. Its most profitable business currently is white goods, including fridges and washing machines.

"We decided to purchase (Sanyo) in the summer of 2008 and ... the competition (environment) has changed since then and the yen has strengthened very much," said Panasonic Managing Director Makoto Uenoyama.

Sanyo had a quarterly operating loss of more than 20 billion yen.

Panasonic, which trimmed its forecast for the number of flat-screen TVs it will sell, does expect to make an operating profit for the year, though this is now seen at just 30 billion yen, down from a previous 130 billion yen.

Last year, Panasonic had an operating profit, which excludes one off items, of 305 billion yen.

source: reuters.com