Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. said Friday it incurred a consolidated net loss of ¥69.93 billion in fiscal 2008, which ended in March, and expects to see a loss of ¥55 billion in the current fiscal year due mainly to a car sales slump.

The yen's appreciation and the stock market fall also hurt its earnings performance amid the financial crisis that spread to take a toll on the real economy, the company said.

The net loss, which was the first one in 15 years and compared with a profit of ¥18.48 billion in the previous year, was also attributed to the costs of releasing new cars and extraordinary losses, Fuji Heavy said.

Pretax loss amounted to ¥4.6 billion against a profit of ¥45.44 billion in the previous year.

Sales fell 8.0 percent to ¥1.45 trillion. Automobile sales dropped 6.9 percent to 555,000 vehicles.