Japan's Panasonic set for $10.2 billion loss

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Japan's Panasonic on Friday warned it would see its worst-ever net loss of 780 billion yen ($10.2 billion) for the year to March, blaming the strong yen, flooding in Thailand and acquisition costs.

The electronics giant said the huge net loss -- which would be one of the worst ever recorded by any non-financial Japanese company -- was due to one-off costs it incurred to acquire rival Sanyo, among other factors.

"We expect a sizable decline in sales due to the impact of massive flooding in Thailand last October on broad supply chains, together with a global economic slowdown triggered by the European debt crisis," the firm said.

It made a net profit of 74 billion yen in the year to March 2011, and its first forecast for the current year had been a 30 billion yen profit.

Osaka-based Panasonic revised downward its annual sales forecast to 8.0 trillion yen, from 8.3 trillion yen earlier. Operating profit for the year is now seen at 30 billion yen, compared with 130 billion yen projected earlier.

The company separately said it posted a net loss of 333.82 billion yen for the nine months to December, reversing a 114.70 billion yen profit in the corresponding period a year earlier.

Operating profit for the period plunged 85.0 per cent to 39.54 billion yen on sales of 5.97 trillion yen, down 10.3 percent.

On top of the impact of the Thai floods and the eurozone crisis, Panasonic blamed the strong yen and the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami, as well as severe price competition.