Toshiba posts $1.3bn net loss for April-June quarter

TOKYO: Toshiba Corp reported yesterday a net loss of 140.23 billion yen ($1.3 billion) for the April to June quarter, weighed down by the sluggish performance of its affiliated semiconductor business amid the escalating US-China trade war.

The technology conglomerate said the red ink came also after booking a loss of 89.3 billion yen related to its agreement to transfer its liquefied natural gas operation in the United States to French oil giant Total SA as part of restructuring efforts.

In the January-March period of fiscal 2018, Toshiba Memory Holdings Corp, the world’s second-largest producer of flash memory chips after Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, booked a net loss of 19.3 billion yen after sales of chips used in smartphones fell due to the trade dispute between China and the United States.

Toshiba still holds 40.2% of shares of Toshiba Memory after it sold the chip manufacturer to an international consortium including US private equity firm Bain Capital and South Korean chip maker SK Hynix Inc in June last year.

“With the outlook for the US-China trade war and the Chinese economy remaining unclear, we may need to cut fixed costs or review our current investment plans to mitigate the negative impact down the road,” chief financial officer Masayoshi Hirata told a press conference.

Toshiba’s net loss compares with its record 1.02 trillion yen net profit in the same period last year which it booked thanks to the sale of the chip unit. It sold the unit for about two trillion yen to bolster its finances in the wake of its troubles.

For the first three months of the current fiscal year, Toshiba said its operating profit came to 7.83 billion yen, up from 730 million yen the year before, thanks to cost cuts and solid performance in social infrastructure business such as elevators and air conditioners.

Its sales fell 3.5% to 813.16 billion yen, on sluggish demand for semiconductors and after its personal computer operations were removed from its group following its sale to Sharp Corp last year, also to streamline its businesses.

In the year through next March, Toshiba maintained its earnings outlooks, expecting group operating profit to nearly quadruple to 140 billion yen on sales of 3.4 trillion yen, down 7.9%.

The company did not provide a net profit forecast, citing difficulty in assessing the earnings of Toshiba Memory.