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Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: slacker711 who wrote (28112)	4/28/2005 8:58:17 AM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Toshiba Profit Falls 49%; Outlook Is for Increase (Update3) bloomberg.com April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp., Japan's second-biggest chipmaker, said fourth-quarter net income fell 49 percent. The company expects annual profit to rise 20 percent in the current business year. Net income declined to 36.1 billion yen ($341 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 70.3 billion yen a year earlier, the company said today in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Tokyo-based Toshiba forecast annual net income to rise to 55 billion yen in the year to March 2006, from 46 billion yen in the year just ended. Profit rose 60 percent in the year ended March, from 28.8 billion yen a year earlier. Toshiba is boosting production of so-called NAND flash-memory chips, used in cameras and other gadgets, as surging demand for music players such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod causes shortages of the chips. Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest semiconductor maker, said last week it is having ``difficulty'' meeting the growing chip demand. ``By expanding flash memory chip production, Toshiba can absorb price declines and see some growth,'' Naoki Sato, an analyst at Morgan Stanley Japan Ltd., said before the earnings release. ``Flash prices will probably fall 35 percent in the current year.'' For the fourth quarter, sales rose 2 percent to 1.68 trillion yen, from 1.65 trillion yen a year earlier. Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, declined 40 percent to 103.2 billion yen in the period, from 172.6 billion yen a year earlier, Toshiba reported. Full Year For the full year just ended, sales gained 4.6 percent to 5.84 trillion yen, while operating profit fell 11 percent to 154.8 billion yen, the company said. Earnings per share rose to 14.32 yen, compared with 8.96 yen a year earlier. Full-year profit was bolstered in part because the company's tax payments fell to 5.6 billion yen, from 10.2 billion yen a year earlier, the company said. Toshiba will accelerate its production schedule and more than double its monthly output of flash memory chips by the end of the year at its factory in Yokkaichi, western Japan, spokesman Junichi Nagaki said yesterday. The company can currently meet only 80 percent of its orders for the chips, he said. In February, Toshiba named Atsutoshi Nishida as president, promoting an executive who spearheaded the return to profitability of the company's computer business. Nishida, 61, introduced notebook computers such as the ``Qosmio,'' which has higher visual and audio quality than conventional PCs, and cut costs by outsourcing production to Taiwan and China. Toshiba's shares fell 0.2 percent, or 1 yen, to 430 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company released results after the market closed.