Fujitsu quarterly profit down 40 percent

By YURI KAGEYAMA

- AP Business Writer

TOKYO — Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu on Monday reported nearly a 40 percent plunge in profit for the January-March quarter, largely on costs to restructure its computer chips operations.

Declining prices of its stock holdings, slightly weaker sales and an absence of cash that had inflated profits a year earlier from the selling of shares it held in Fanuc Ltd., a robot-maker, also contributed to the drop, Fujitsu Ltd. said.

Net profit in the fiscal fourth quarter totaled 51.92 billion yen ($502.1 million), down 39.9 percent from 86.41 billion yen the same period the previous year.

Quarterly sales inched down 1.1 percent to 1.523 trillion yen ($14.73 billion).

Much of the drop came because of a charge Fujitsu took for restructuring its computer chip business to make design, development and other operations into an independent subsidiary.

The Tokyo-based maker of computers, software and network products forecast a 100 billion yen ($967 million) profit for the fiscal year ending March 2009.

That's more than double the 48.1 billion yen profit for the just-ended fiscal year, when profit fell 53 percent from the previous year. But Fujitsu warned of tough times in coming months as growth in services and hard disk drive businesses is offset by a decline in overseas earnings caused by a stronger yen.