Hitachi Ltd. forecast Tuesday its first annual net income in three years for the 2008 business year, helped by profit at its disk-drive unit.
Net profit will probably reach ¥40 billion in the year to next March, compared with a ¥58.1 billion loss in the previous year, Hitachi said.
The loss for the last business year was less than the ¥70 billion Hitachi predicted in March.
Hitachi expects the disk-drive division to turn profitable after cutting jobs, closing factories and reducing material costs.
For last year, Hitachi saw its group net loss widen from the ¥32.80 billion it posted in business 2006.
It had hoped to turn the business around last year but revised its projection in February after a deterioration of its digital media and consumer appliance businesses.
Still, Hitachi booked a consolidated operating profit of ¥345.52 billion, up 89.3 percent from the previous year, on sales of ¥11.23 trillion, up 9.6 percent, aided by solid sales of electronic devices and other products.