Major electronics maker Sharp Corp. on Wednesday announced a record high group net profit of 88.67 billion yen for the year to March 31, up 15.4 percent from the previous year, thanks to brisk sales of flat-screen TVs.
The latest figures mark Sharp's third straight year of record sales and net profits.
The firm said operating profit rose 8.4 percent year-on-year to 163.7 billion yen on sales of 2.80 trillion yen, up 10.1 percent. The company posted a pretax profit of 150.9 billion yen, a gain of 7.4 percent.
The healthy numbers appear to show that Sharp's strategy of concentrating on the LCD TV business is paying off.
Of the 219.0 billion yen in investments it made in the reporting year, 148 billion yen was pumped into the flat-screen TV business. The company said it will further increase its spending in the segment to 194 billion yen this fiscal year.
Sharp's sales of flat-screen TVs jumped 33.0 percent from the previous year to 410.7 billion yen thanks to good sales in North America and Europe.
The company forecasts that its sales will rise by 33.9 percent to 550 billion yen in the current fiscal year despite an expected 10 percent fall in the retail price of its TVs.