THE JAPAN NEWS


 

TOKYO (Reuters) — Sony Corp. on Tuesday forecast operating profit to rise just 2 percent this business year, after the electronics maker partially halted production of its cash-cow image sensors last month to assess quake damage at one of its plants.

Sony expects profit of ¥300 billion for the year through March 2017, far below the ¥409.1 billion average of 27 analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Earnings at Sony have been revived in recent quarters, as brisk sales of its image sensors for smartphones mask slowing sales in other consumer electronics such as television sets.

The company had pushed back its forecast announcement from late April after deadly earthquakes shook the city of Kumamoto, home to one of its five image sensor plants. The company partially resumed operations earlier this month.

Sony estimated the impact from the quake on its image sensor and digital camera operations would total ¥105 billion this business year. It said the impact on the company as a whole would be ¥115 billion.
Sony forecast its devices division, which includes image sensors, to book an operating loss of ¥40 billion, compared with the previous year’s loss of ¥29.3 billion.

Sony holds about 40 percent of the market for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor image sensors, a type of integrated circuit that converts light into electrical signals.

Its sensors appear in Apple Inc.’s iPhones.

Analysts said the quakes had little impact on the supply of sensors for iPhones because Kumamoto is not the main production site.

But they also said there could be delays to shipments of dual-lens camera modules, which Apple is widely rumored to be adopting for in the high-end model of its upcoming iPhone 7.