Panasonic books post-quake $390mn quarterly loss

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.

Also Thursday, the Japanese electronics giant announced plans to sell subsidiary Sanyo Electric's washing machine and refrigerator operations in Asia to China's Haier Group.

Sanyo said it had signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer its consumer and commercial use washing machine, consumer refrigerator and white goods sales business in four countries in Southeast Asia to Haier.

The rare move of a Chinese buyout of key operations from a major Japanese manufacturer comes as Panasonic looks to streamline operations with Sanyo, its wholly-owned subsidiary.

Panasonic and Sanyo are looking to jettison overlapping businesses, with Panasonic loooking to focus more environmental technology such as reachargeable batteries, solar panels and other energy-saving systems.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011