Yamaha Corp. said Friday its group net balance fell into the red in fiscal 2001 due chiefly to appraisal losses on its securities holdings.

Yamaha's group net loss came to 10.27 billion yen in the year that ended March 31, a turnaround from the previous year's profit of 13.32 billion yen.

Its per-share net loss amounted to 49.75 yen, compared with the previous year's per-share profit of 64.5 yen.

The world's largest musical instrument maker said its group pretax profit plunged 60.1 percent from the previous year to 7.68 billion yen on group sales of 504.41 billion yen, down 2.8 percent.

The company attributed the profit fall to the lower retail prices it set to reduce inventory, as well as inventory from its audiovisual and information-technology business. The inventories have swollen amid economic slowdowns in Japan and the United States.

Still, the company said it will pay a full-year dividend of 8 yen per share for the reporting year, up from 7 yen the previous year.

For fiscal 2002, the company forecasts a group net profit of 14 billion yen and a pretax profit of 18.5 billion yen on projected sales of 530 billion yen.