Japan's Toshiba reported a smaller-than-expected quarterly operating loss thanks to solid chip prices, and stuck to its forecast for a return to profit this year on cost cuts.
Toshiba, the world's No.2 maker of NAND-type flash memory chips after Samsung Electronics, said today its operating loss totalled 37.59 billion yen ($398.3 million) in April-June, against a 22.9 billion yen loss a year earlier.thir
It was its third straight quarterly loss, but it was smaller than the consensus 52.6 billion yen loss forecast by three analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
Toshiba maintained its forecast for a 100 billion yen operating profit for the full year to next March because of a previously announced $3 billion cost-cutting plan. Still, 18 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters on average forecast a profit of 29.7 billion yen.
A nascent chip recovery has propelled Samsung's chip business into the black, but smaller chip makers are grappling with weak prices and scrambling for funds to invest in new technologies to keep up.
Toshiba shares rose 38 per cent in April-June, boosted by a $5 billion fund raising plan that allayed financing fears and outpacing a 25 percent rise in Tokyo's electrical machinery sub-index.
Reuters