Hitachi Issues Profit Warning for Half Year

Hitachi Ltd., Japan’s biggest electronics maker, issued a profit warning for its fiscal first half ending Sept. 30, confirming recent market fears of an earnings setback in Japan’s high-tech sector.

The company blamed the revisions on currency swings and isolated problems at a few divisions, but the firm made it clear that the business environment had worsened in the current quarter and uncertainty loomed for the second half of the year.

“The April-June quarter was good, but July-September was tough across the board,” Hitachi Executive Vice President Yoshiki Yagi said at a news conference.

Although the company left its full-year targets unchanged, Yagi left open the possibility that they could be cut when official first-half numbers are announced at the end of next month.

“We still can’t tell how the second half is really going to shape up.... We’ll be back here again in a month, and I think we can probably give a clearer picture then.”

The company expects to break even on a consolidated net basis for the half a year from April to September compared with its previous target of a $42-million profit.

The operating-profit figure was cut to $432 million from $582 million.