A mix of strong currency in Japan along with a decrease in sales of TVs, digital cameras and other consumer technology devices has left three Japanese industry giants with earnings headaches. Sony, Nintendo and Toshiba all reported poor earnings for their third fiscal quarters.
Sony, which in recent months has had to close some plants, cut thousands of jobs, and decrease investment, reported a 94.8 percent drop in profits for the quarter. Its game-segment sales fell 32.2 percent from the same quarter a year ago.
Sony on Thursday also announced that it will postpone a previously announced joint venture with Sharp to produce and sell large LCD panels and modules until March 2010, a year later than originally scheduled.
Nintendo’s fall wasn’t as hard, but the maker of Wii video-game consoles reported earnings fell 18 percent in the nine months through December.
While Sony has made it clear it’s struggling because of the recession and a strong yen, Nintendo surprised analysts by lowering its profit forecast for its fiscal year a second time. Nintendo has had rock-solid sales for both its Wii gaming console and DS handheld device, but downgraded its full-year profit forecast by 33 percent to 230 billion yen (US$2.6 billion.
As of Dec. 31, Wii sales worldwide were 44.96 million units, a 10 million increase from October. In December alone, 2.15 million Wiis were sold, according to NPD Group. Since Nintendo launched its DS portable gaming device in November 2004, it has sold 96.22 million units. In December, Nintendo sold 3.04 million DS units in the US.
Still, expected foreign-exchange losses of 200 billion yen (US$2.2. billion) for the fiscal year are to blame for the downgrade, the company said.
NEC Electronics, the supplier of chips for Nintendo’s Wii gaming consoles, also had forecast an annual…