Japan's Toshiba Corp. will return to the black in the year to March 2001 thanks to robust demand for microchips and its restructuring effort, a report said Sunday.
The computer and electronics giant expects its group net profit to reach 130 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in the year, exceeding its earlier forecast by 30 billion yen, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.
The 130-billion-yen projection is a stark contrast to 28 billion yen in group net loss Toshiba incurred in the previous 12 months, its worst ever performance.
The company owed the earning comeback to strong demand for chips such as flash memories for digital cameras and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used for personal computers, the business daily said.
Its restructuring efforts also paid off, it said.
"Under its comprehensive restructuring effort, Toshiba has become more confident in expanding its profit," the daily said.
Toshiba's rival NEC Corp. is also likely to upgrade its earning forecast thanks to strong demand for microchips, it said.
For the current financial year, NEC expects its net profit to reach 75 billion yen, up from 10.4 billion yen of net profit in the previous 12 months. — (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
