Sanyo Electric Co. (Tokyo, Japan) announced that it expects operating profit for this year to fall 53 percent from a year ago due to weak sales of semiconductors and batteries. Operating profit for the business year ending on March 31, 2002, is expected to come in at about 50 billion yen (US$387.0 million) compared with 106.59 billion yen a year ago. Consolidated sales are expected to fall slightly to 2.105 trillion yen from 2.157 trillion yen.
It has been reported that Sanyo plans to write off 23 billion yen in appraisal losses for its stockholdings, take a 8.5 billion yen charge for early retirement programs and keep dividend payments unchanged at six yen.
