Panasonic sales to beat annual target

Tokyo: Panasonic, the world's largest maker of plasma televisions, expects to beat its full-year TV sales target, helped by sales in the Japanese market, President Fumio Ohtsubo said.

TV sales in the year ending March 31 are poised to exceed the 21 million sets the company had anticipated, Ohtsubo said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday.

The Japanese government's "eco-point" incentives for purchases of energy-saving electronics boosted sales at home, its biggest market, while demand in the US has been in line with the company's expectations, he said.

Japanese consumers rushed to buy TVs before the government scaled back incentives for energy-efficient TVs and appliances this month. Shipments of flat-panel sets in Japan jumped fivefold last month from a year earlier, according to electronics-research firm BCN in Tokyo.

Compensating drop

"Panasonic benefited a lot from the subsidies as Japan accounts a large portion of its sales," said Nobuo Kurahashi, an analyst at Mizuho Financial Group. "But it's inevitable sales in Japan will decrease next year and Panasonic will have to compensate the decline with revenue from developing countries or Europe and the US."

Panasonic fell 0.7 per cent to 1,186 yen at 1.47pm in Tokyo trading. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average dropped 0.5 per cent. The company expects year-end revenue of audio and visual products in Europe and the US to increase by one per cent to two per cent, Ohtsubo said.

The US TV market "lacks forcefulness, but sales there haven't gone down below our estimate."

Panasonic, the first major TV maker to sell 3-D sets in the US, has said it's aiming to boost TV sales 33 per cent to 21 million sets this fiscal year, including one million 3-D models. Panasonic plans to release more internet-enabled TVs to boost demand, he said.