Major consumer electronics firms Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toshiba Corp. posted strong financial results Friday for fiscal 2005 despite a wide difference in the performances of their flat-panel display businesses.
Matsushita posted a net profit of 154.4 billion yen, more than twice than the year before, on sales of 8.89 trillion yen, up 2.1 percent, due to robust sales of plasma display panel TVs and digital cameras.
Toshiba's net profit rose 69.8 percent to 78.19 billion yen due to brisk semiconductor sales, including flash memories for portable music players.
Matsushita said it plans to double its global sales in PDP TVs, known for its Viera series, from 2 million units in fiscal 2005 to 4 million units this fiscal year. The projected figure will push up its global share from 35 percent to 40 percent.
The Osaka-based maker of the Panasonic brand will also aim at selling twice as many digital cameras this fiscal year to 8 million units.
Matsushita reported the brisk figures despite a large-scale recall of its kerosene heaters after they found a flaw that led to several deaths.
Meanwhile, Toshiba's pretax profit rose 60.2 percent to 178.18 billion yen, on sales of 6.34 trillion yen, which increased 8.7 percent, thanks to the strong performance of its mobile phone business.
Operating profit for Toshiba's liquid-crystal display panel sector dropped by 9.5 billion yen to 4 billion yen due to a price decline in personal computers. Its home appliance sector returned to the black this year from a loss in the previous year.