Toshiba net profit down 18.5% in first half

Japanese technology giant Toshiba on Monday said its net profit dropped 18.5 percent in the six months to September, mainly due to a strong yen and the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Toshiba's group net profit came to 22.7 billion yen ($287 million) for the first half, down from 27.8 billion yen for the same period last year. The company, whose operations range from consumer electronics to nuclear power plants, said operating profit declined 23.4 percent to 80.2 billion yen with sales down 5.5 percent at 2.9 trillion yen. The revenue and profit declines were mainly due to a slump in its digital products and electronics devices businesses, which were hit by "the impact of sharp yen appreciation and the March earthquake," a company statement said. By sector, revenue from its digital products segment fell eight percent to 863 billion yen as sales of electronic devices slumped 11 percent to 813 billion yen. Revenue from social infrastructure businesses edged down one percent to 1.01 trillion yen, but sales of home appliances rose four percent to 307 billion yen. Toshiba has left its projection for the full year to March 2012 unchanged, still forecasting 140 billion yen in net profit and 300 billion yen in operating profit on sales of 7.0 trillion yen. For the three months to September, net profit was 22.2 billion yen, down 18.7 percent from a year earlier, on sales of 1.59 trillion yen, down 2.7 percent. Toshiba also attributed the quarterly profit slump to a strong yen. On Monday, Japan intervened in currency markets for the first time since August to weaken the yen, after the unit's latest post-war dollar high underlined its threat to the nation's export-led economy. The dollar rocketed to as high as 79.49 after hitting 75.32 yen in Oceanian trade earlier Monday. The intervention also saw the euro rise sharply to 111.25 yen from 107.06 yen earlier Monday.