By Chris Nicholls
TOKYO: Toshiba has continued its woes, posting a loss for the first quarter of the Japanese financial year.
Sales of the beleaguered consumer electronics giant fell 45.9 billion yen from the first quarter of FY07 to 1.618 trillion yen, with an operating loss of 24.2 billion yen.
The company’s net loss for the quarter came in at 11.6 billion yen.
Toshiba put the loss down to a combination of “sharp yen appreciation against the [US] dollar and steep declines in semiconductor sales”.
Digital products returned to the black in a rare positive for the company after the HD DVD failure and subsequent negative financial position, but sales still fell 19.6 billion yen to 644.3 billion.
Electronic devices sales suffered a huge drop in operating income, down 50.9 billion yen to post a 34.2 billion yen loss.
Toshiba said the sales drop came from lower NAND flash and system LSI sales.
Social infrastructure sales rose 4.3 billion yen, but home appliances sales fell eight per cent to 172.1 billion for a 6.9 billion yen operating loss. Toshiba attributed this drop to “slumping personal consumption” and changes in Japanese building regulations.