Panasonic Corp. said Thursday its group net profit in the six months through September grew 37.6 percent from a year earlier to ¥111.33 billion ($922 million) on strong sales of home appliances and the weaker yen.
The Osaka-based electronics maker posted a 13.3 percent increase in operating profit to ¥200.45 billion, with sales up 1.0 percent at ¥3.76 trillion.
In addition to strong sales of home appliances, such as refrigerators and washing machines, Panasonic also attributed its profit increase to robust sales of video equipment for airplanes, security cameras and car-mounted equipment.
Sales of TVs declined sharply, as the company is shrinking its operations in the United States and China. The housing-related business was also sluggish due to falling sales of solar power-generation systems.
"In Japan, we aggressively introduced new refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. In overseas markets, we changed course to add new products to our lineup, such as larger home appliances," Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga said at a news conference in Tokyo.
While the company left its full-year earnings forecast unchanged at ¥180 billion in net profit on sales of ¥8 trillion, Tsuga indicated that the sales target could become harder to achieve depending on market conditions in emerging economies.