Mitsubishi Raises Earnings Outlook Mar 23, 2004

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Mitsubishi Electric Corp. sharply raised its earnings forecast for the current fiscal year, citing strong demand for digital home appliances in Japan and improved investment sentiment in China.

The Tokyo, Japan-based electronics maker said it now expects a group net profit of 42 billion yen (approx. U.S. $392.5 million) for the year ending March 31, up from the September forecast of 12 billion yen (approx. $112.1 million).

Mitsubishi Electric said that strong capital investment in China had helped sales of factory equipment and semiconductors. Mitsubishi and Hitachi Ltd. jointly own Renesas Technology Corp., said to be the world's third-largest semiconductor maker by market share.

In Japan, brisk sales of digital home appliances has boosted its electronic devices business, helping to offset lower sales of information and communication-related products, including mobile phones, the company said.

While Mitsubishi maintained its group sales outlook for the year at 3.30 trillion yen (approx. $30.9 billion), it said declining pension-related losses had helped boost its profit forecast.

The company returned some of its employee pension funds to the government, as they performed poorly during Japan's stock market slump in recent years. The company said it now expects pretax pension-related losses of about 10 billion yen (approx. $93.5 million) for the year, an improvement from the 40 billion yen (approx. $373.8 million) it had expected in February. (Associated Press)

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