| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
advertisement | ||
Monday March 26, 2:31 PMMitsubishi Elec revises up earnings, shares jumpTOKYO, March 26 (Reuters) - Mitsubishi Electric Corp. , Japan's fifth-largest electronics conglomerate, raised its annual operating profit forecast by 28 percent to above market expectations on Monday, helped by strong demand for factory automation equipment.Shares in Mitsubishi Electric jumped 3.3 percent to the day's high of 1,225 yen on the revision, before closing up 1.6 percent at 1,205 yen. The benchmark Nikkei average inched up 0.24 percent. Mitsubishi Electric and its rivals Siemens AG and Rockwell Automation Inc. have benefited from a spending spree by chip and construction makers on robots, lasers, sensors and other equipment used to run their plants. It said it now expects to post a record group operating profit of 230 billion yen ($1.95 billion) for the year ending this month, compared with its previous forecast for 180 billion yen and last year's result of 157.7 billion yen. The market consensus was 212 billion yen, according to 19 brokerages polled by Reuters Estimates. Company officials were cautious in their comments about next business year, however. "Factory automation demand has been patchy, with orders levelling off in some places since January," Mitsubishi Electric Senior Vice President Yukihiro Sato said at a news conference. But the outlook should be strong for the electronics group, said Fujio Ando, senior managing director at Chibagin Asset Management. "Demand from carmakers should recover next year to make up for slowdowns elsewhere," Ando said. "Mitsubishi Electric is always very conservative in its forecasts." Mitsubishi Electric also raised its sales forecast by 3.2 percent to 3.82 trillion yen, citing improved sales of air conditioners in Europe and projection TVs in the U.S., as well as strong sales of factory automation equipment, which makes up about 40 percent of sales. The company nudged up its net profit forecast by 1.7 percent to 122 billion yen, after the company set aside 42 billion yen in reserves to cover potential fines for antitrust violations. The company is appealing a 118.6 million euro ($157.3 million) European Commission fine for fixing prices for electric power system switch gear, Sato said. Mitsubishi Electric also faces a probe by the U.S. Justice Department into possible antitrust violations in its dynamic random-access memory business between 1998 and 2002. |
|||
|
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Reuters Limited
|