Japan's Sony Corporation said today that its operating profit plunged 90% in the second quarter of the financial year, hit by a surging yen, a weak global economy and intense price competition.
Operating profit dropped to 11 billion yen ($113m) in the three months to September, down from 111.6 billion in the same period of the previous year, the company said. Net profit plunged 72% to 20.8 billion yen as revenue dropped 0.5% to 2.07 trillion yen.
The figures were in line with preliminary results given by the group last week when it also slashed its full-year earnings forecasts.
The steep fall was partly due to a slump in the Japanese stock market, which hit Sony's financial services business. The year-earlier figure was also inflated by the sale of a portion of the site of Sony's former headquarters.
Sony chairman Howard Stringer said this week that the electronics giant was keeping up its long-term global ambitions despite taking a 'very, very strong' hit in the global financial crisis.
Sony kept its forecast for a net profit of 150 billion yen for the full financial year to March, down 59% from the previous year. Revenue is expected to edge up 1.5% to 9 trillion yen.
Meanwhile, Japan's Toshiba said today that a weak performance at its computer chip business and a stronger yen had pushed it deeper into the red in the fiscal second quarter.
Toshiba, whose interests span electronics and nuclear energy, posted a net loss of 26.85 billion yen ($277m), after a first-quarter loss of 11.61 billion. A year earlier Toshiba had made a profit of 25.03 billion yen.
Operating profit tumbled to just 707 million yen in the three months to September, down from 61.34 billion a year earlier. Revenue dropped 7.3% to 1.87 trillion yen.
Toshiba has been hit by falling prices of NAND flash memory chips used in portable music players and other electronic devices. It also called it quits in February in a fierce battle over next-generation DVDs which was won by rival Sony's Blu-ray.
Toshiba runs diverse businesses including US nuclear power plant Westinghouse Electric, which it bought in a multibillion-dollar deal in 2006.
