By Chris Nicholls
TOKYO: Toshiba has announced their estimated losses from HD DVD will top the AU$700 million mark.
Announced yesterday, Toshiba revised their 2007 Japanese financial year forecast for the failed format from 65 billion yen in sales (AU$719 million) and 50 billion yen in losses (AU$550 million) to only 26 billion yen in sales (AU$287 million) and 65 billion yen in losses (AU$719).
The news comes after a week of speculation from various news media the announcement would be closer to AU$1.1 billion in losses from the HD DVD project.
In other negative news, Toshiba also expected their LCD panel business to turn a 12 billion yen loss (AU$132 million) for FY07, despite net sales of 285 billion yen (AU$3.1 billion).
The drop from the two AV-related divisions meant Toshiba revised their overall operating income forecast from 7.8 trillion yen to 7.7 trillion yen (AU$850 billion), a drop of 70 basis points from their original 3.7 per cent forecast.
All other divisions continued to perform, though, with the ‘social infrastructure’ division and other consumer electronics devices selling well.
Despite the announcement, Toshiba shares were up three per cent today to 691.