Japan Business News

Japan's Panasonic Corp warned of a record annual $US10.2 billion net loss, joining beleaguered rivals Sony and Sharp in a sea of red ink as they struggle to fix their broken TV businesses and show they have not lost their way. Panasonic's forecast loss of 780 billion yen ($US10.2 billion) for the year to March dwarfed expectations, and is almost all due to restructuring charges and writedowns for its Sanyo Electric unit. Sony on Thursday pressed its reset button after warning of a bigger-than-expected annual loss, announcing that Kazuo Hirai will take over from Stringer as CEO in April, triggering an 8 per cent jump in its share price on Friday, its biggest one-day per centage gain in almost a year. (Sydney Morning Herald)

NHK is in talks to sell some 1,050 analog broadcasting relay stations it no longer uses to Softbank Mobile Corp., sources said. The mobile phone service provider will use the stations - rendered obsolete by the nationwide switch to digital broadcasting last July - mostly as cell towers in mountainous areas because of complaints about reception in rural areas, the sources said Thursday. By improving its network, the carrier hopes to gain an advantage in the competition for radio bands for next-generation, high-speed data communications that might be allocated by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry later this month, they added. (Japan Times)

Panasonic on Friday nearly doubled its projected net loss for the fiscal year to a record 780 billion yen ($10.2 billion) amid weak TV and mobile phone sales and ongoing restructuring costs after acquiring smaller Sanyo Electronics Co. Panasonic joins Sony and Sharp as the latest major Japanese electronics maker to predict huge losses for the year through March. That reflects the battering these brand name companies have taken from the yen's surge, a weak global economy, last year's tsunami disaster as well as flooding in Thailand, which disrupted supply networks. For the October-December quarter, Panasonic reported a net loss of 197.6 billion yen ($2.6 billion). A year earlier, it had a net profit of 40 billion yen for the same quarter. (AP)

Hitachi Ltd said on Friday it would reorganize its operational structure in April by setting up five new groups as the Japanese conglomerate continues to overhaul its sprawling operations to boost profitability. The nation's biggest industrial electronics company has been revamping its empire of some 900 firms after it reported one of the biggest losses in Japanese corporate history only three years ago under the weight of a high-cost structure and lack of operational focus. Hitachi bounced back from those losses and has been a rare bright spot among its peers during the current earnings season, with its shares jumping more than 7 percent on Friday after it maintained its full-year profit outlook, in contrast to other electronics makers that have forecast massive annual losses. (Reuters)

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down the nation's first ruling on publicity rights, saying celebrities' names and photos are protected under publicity rights, but rejecting a compensation demand by the plaintiffs in the case, singing duo Pink Lady. Presiding Justice Ryuko Sakurai said in the ruling: "Celebrities' names and images can help sales by attracting potential customers. They are protected under publicity rights." By clarifying the status of publicity rights and providing a guideline on what constitutes a violation, the ruling will likely be seen as a wake-up call on using celebrities' names or images in publications and on the Internet without permission. Pink Lady had demanded that Kobunsha Co. pay them compensation of 3.72 million yen, saying the use of their photos without their agreement in a magazine published by the company infringed on their publicity rights. (Yomiuri)

Japanese entertainment giant Sony more than doubled its full-year net loss forecast to $2.9 billion, a day after announcing that its president and CEO Howard Stringer would step aside. The firm on Thursday said it was expecting a net loss of 220 billion yen ($2.9 billion) for the year to March, up from 90 billion yen previously, in what will be its fourth consecutive year of losses. Last year the Tokyo-based maker of PlayStation consoles and Bravia televisions lost 259.6 billion yen. Sony also announced a net loss of 201.45 billion yen for the nine months to December, having made a profit of 129.22 billion yen in the corresponding period in 2010. (AFP)

Japanese electronics maker Sharp said Wednesday it expected a full-year net loss of $3.8 billion, blaming falling prices, a high yen and the global economic slowdown. The firm expects to lose 290 billion yen for the year to March, reversing an earlier projection of a six billion yen net profit. For the nine months to December it made a net loss of 213.5 billion yen, compared with a 21.83 billion yen profit in the corresponding period in the previous year, it said. During the same period, operating losses came to 9.1 billion yen, reversing operating profit of 66.5 billion yen in the previous year, while sales fell 18.3 percent to 1.9 trillion yen, Sharp said. (AFP)

Japan's major banks reported a mixed bag of earnings results for the April-December period, as valuation losses from equity holdings and an incoming corporate tax shake-up prompted a number of firms to book charges. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. was the only one of Japan's megabanks to report net profit gain in the period from the year before. Japan's biggest bank by assets logged a 48% surge in net income largely due to a one-time gain from conversion of its holdings of preferred shares in Morgan Stanley into common shares at the end of June. [MUFG] MUFG said its net profit came to ¥815.80 billion in the nine-month period, compared with a ¥551.83 billion profit in the same period a year earlier. (Wall Street Journal)

Sony Corp. announced Wednesday that Kazuo Hirai, who leads the company's core consumer products business, will replace Howard Stringer as CEO and president as the electronics and entertainment company tries to turn around its fortunes. The 51-year-old Hirai, currently executive deputy president, was widely expected to succeed Stringer, who will become chairman of the board of directors in June, Sony said in a statement. Hirai had also led the company's gaming business in the past. In 2009, Hirai was named as part of a new management team to lead Sony, and Stringer had told the board he recommended Hirai replace him. Battered by the strong yen and poor sales in its flat panel TV business, Sony has forecast its fourth year of net loss for the fiscal year through March. It will announce fiscal third quarter earnings on Thursday. (AP)

Late last month, Nintendo signaled that for the first time in more than 30 years it was posting an annual loss - of $845 million - something that until recently had seemed virtually impossible. For three decades, Nintendo has been the company people associate with video games. And during the last few years, Nintendo expanded that notion to a wider audience than ever before with risky and innovative game machines, such as the Nintendo DS and the Wii. So, what has changed? Why are things suddenly difficult for the iconic game company? During these past 30 years Nintendo has basically held a winning lottery ticket, which paid off year by year. (Japan Times)

Japanese film and camera maker Fujifilm has offered scandal-hit Olympus a capital and business tie-up, it said Monday as it announced a slump in third-quarter profits. Fujifilm said it has formally proposed a link-up to Olympus' advisors, seeing synergies in the pair's medical operations, although it did not reveal details. "Olympus has a very strong business in endoscopes while Fujifilm is a leading firm in the areas of X-ray image diagnosis and ultrasonic systems," said a Fujifilm spokesman. Olympus is reportedly seeking a corporate alliance to shore up its finances after admitting covering up $1.7 billion in losses, and several Japanese and foreign firms including Sony have been mentioned as possible partners. (AFP)

Japanese high-tech giant Canon said its full-year net profit was up 0.8 percent as cost-cutting offset the impact of last year's tsunami and Thai floods, as well as the strong yen. Group net profit rose to 248.6 billion yen ($3.2 billion) for the year to December from 246.6 billion yen, said the PowerShot digital camera and office equipment maker, even though sales slipped 4.0 percent to 3.56 trillion yen. The firm said Japan's strong currency, which set several post-World War II highs against the US dollar in 2011, had cost it 83.3 billion yen at the operating profit level. (AFP)

Two major Japanese conglomerates announced a deal to create one of the country's biggest shipbuilders Monday as the industry faces increasingly tough competition. Heavy machinery giant IHI and steelmaker JFE Holdings will merge their shipbuilding units IHI Marine United Inc. and Universal Shipbuilding Corporation, they said in a joint statement. Universal will become the surviving entity. Shipbuilding was once one of the drivers of Japan's post-War economic miracle, but in recent years the industry has been overtaken by those of other Asian countries. (AFP)

Two Japanese auto suppliers have agreed to pay more than half a billion dollars in criminal fines for a price-fixing conspiracy in the sale of parts to U.S. automakers, the Justice Department announced Monday. Yazaki Corp. agreed to pay a $470 million fine, the second-largest criminal fine obtained for an antitrust violation. The second company, DENSO Corp., agreed to pay a $78 million fine. Four Yazaki executives, all Japanese citizens, will serve up to two years in U.S. prison as part of the deal to plead guilty to one felony count. The pleas are part of an ongoing investigation that is the largest ever in the Justice Department antitrust division. (AP)

The halcyon days of Japan's TV makers are long over. Now the business has become a drag on the earnings of the nation's electronics giants. TV demand shrank fast after consumers rushed out to buy digital TVs before broadcasts turned digital last year, making older analog models unusable without satellite or cable TV services. "The prices of flat-screen TVs are falling rapidly," an official with a major home electronics store in Tokyo said. "Customers have become choosy because they are comparison shopping." Hitachi Ltd., which has made TVs since 1956, said this month that it will cease production and outsource the work to foreign manufacturers instead. (Japan Times)

Exxon Mobil Corp. is selling its Japanese refining and marketing business to partner TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K. in a $3.9 billion deal that reflects a long-term decline in Japan's demand for fuel and a global strategy to refocus on exploration. TonenGeneral Sekiyu will buy 99 percent of the shares of Exxon Mobil Yugen Kaisha, which refines and sells fuel and lubricants, the Japanese refiner said about the deal, announced Sunday. Exxon Mobil's stake in TonenGeneral will drop to 22 percent from 50 percent. Large oil and gas companies have been shedding refining operations in recent years and turning to oil exploration and production in the hope of bigger profits. Tighter rules for car and truck fuel efficiency are expected to weigh on growth in demand for fuel in developed countries for years to come. (AP)

After being scared off by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, Chinese tourists are visiting Japan in record numbers again, generating much-needed business and optimism for the nation's struggling retail and tourism sectors. During the Lunar New Year holiday that sent millions of people traveling across Asia and beyond, tourists from mainland China thronged popular destinations in Japan, from ski slopes in the northern island of Hokkaido, to electronics stores in Tokyo, to ancient temples in Kyoto. That's quite a change from last spring, when tourism in Japan ground to a virtual halt amid radiation fears following the March 11 nuclear accident. In December, the number of Chinese visitors rose 32% from a year earlier to a record 80,000, following a similar increase in November. Anecdotal evidence suggests another surge in January. (Wall Street Journal)

A Japan-China friendship group in Okinawa Prefecture has agreed to cooperate on procuring rare earth metals with a local goodwill group in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, sources familiar with the matter said Sunday. The region is a major production base for rare earth minerals, which are crucial to making high-tech gadgets and appliances. The two groups signed a mutual exchange agreement on Jan. 19 in Huhhot, the capital of the special region, that confirms they will cooperate on business involving rare earth metals, the sources said. (Japan Times)

NTT DoCoMo Inc. President Ryuji Yamada and five other executives will face a pay cut over a series of communications service disruptions since last year, the company said Friday, while announcing a ¥164 billion system improvement plan. Yamada was expected to unveil to reporters the company's plan to beef up its data transmission facilities by spending several billion yen, the carrier said. The disruptions were caused by DoCoMo's failure to cope with increased data traffic following the rapid spread of data-hungry smartphones. (Japan Times)

Movie box-office revenues in Japan last year plunged 17.9 percent from an all-time high in the previous year to 181.2 billion yen due to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, a film industry body said Thursday. The number of movies released in Japan came to 799, up 80 from the previous year, but there was no blockbuster, the association said, adding that the number of viewers also dropped by 30 million to 145 million, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan said. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" achieved top revenues at 9.67 billion yen. (Mainichi)