Japanese consumer electronics maker Sharp said its sales and profits jumped to record highs on hot-selling flat-screen TVs and mobile phones in the year to March and it expects earnings to rise further in the current year.
Sharp's net profit shot up 86.3% from a year earlier to 60.7 billion yen ($560m), with recurring profit climbing 36.2% to 111.6 billion yen, said the world's largest maker of LCD televisions.
Sales rose 12.7% to 2.26 trillion yen as revenue at the mainstay audio-visual and communications equipment division rose 12.2% to 837.4 billion yen.
'Revenue from liquid crystal display (LCD) colour televisions grew sharply while sales of mobile handsets grew smoothly,' Sharp said. For the year to March 2005, Sharp expects net profit of 75 billion yen and recurring profit of 140 billion yen on sales of 2.53 trillion yen.
Sales of LCD colour TVs soared 95.5% in the past year to 173.7 billion yen thanks to higher demand for large-screen models. Television revenue is expected to rise a further 72.6% in the year to March 2005, boosted by terrestrial digital broadcasting and by the Athens Olympic games.
'We also want to ensure growth in cellphone sales in Europe and the US while starting production in China of camera-equipped phones to raise our competitiveness,' the company added.
* Japanese consumer electronics maker Sanyo said it had returned to the black in the year to March, led by brisk sales of digital cameras, mobile phones and lithium-ion batteries. The company chalked up a group net profit of 2.9 billion yen ($27m), reversing a net loss of 72.1 billion yen the previous year caused largely by massive appraisal losses on its stockholdings.
Group pre-tax earnings also returned to a profit of 34.6 billion yen from a loss of 84.1 billion yen in the preceding year and was forecast to jump 44.7% to 50 billion yen in the year to March 2005.
