OSAKA -- Sanyo Electric Co. said Friday it has revised downward its group earnings forecast for the first half of the business year, projecting sales of 1.04 trillion yen, down 1.9 percent from previous expectations.

Group net profit is likely to fall 56.4 percent from previous projections to 8.5 billion yen, the company said.

Compared with the same period last year, the company's net group sales will be down 1.8 percent, while its profit will fall 58 percent.

The company attributes the downward revision mainly to sluggish demand for information technology products. Sales of electric parts are likely to fall 15 percent in the first half, although sales of mobile phones and digital cameras will remain favorable.

It said the downward revision will force the company to reduce capital investment for this year to 122 billion yen from the initially planned 150 billion yen.

Sunao Okubo, the company's executive managing director, said demand for electrical parts will remain sluggish this year, even though he earlier expected they would turn upward from July.

He said he will announce in October an earnings projection for the current business year through March 31.

Casio expects less

Casio Computer Co. said Friday that it has revised downward its group earnings forecast for the first half and the full 2001 business year due to a worse-than-expected business environment.

For the first half through Sept. 30, the leading digital watch maker expects a net profit of 600 million yen, down from the 3.2 billion yen estimated in May, and a pretax profit of 1 billion yen, down from 6 billion yen. Sales have been set at 210 billion yen, unchanged from the earlier forecast.

For the full year through next March 31, the company forecasts a net profit of 1.5 billion yen, down from the earlier projected 7 billion yen, and a pretax profit of 3.5 billion yen, down from the predicted 13 billion yen, on sales of 430 billion yen, down from 450 billion yen.

Casio said its watch and high-tech equipment businesses are performing well, but the firm is having a hard time meeting the projected earnings in its mobile network solution business, related to wireless communications operations, due to a worldwide slump.