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Sharp books net loss of 33.98 billion yen in April-June, says to exit Americas TV business

Xinhua, July 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

Sharp Corp. announced Friday it had booked a net loss of 33.98 billion yen (274 million U.S. dollars) in the April-to-June period, marking the fifth straight year of red ink.

With sluggish sales of LCD displays for its smartphone sector weighing heavily on the firm's balance sheet, the Osaka-based electronics maker said Friday it plans to exit the TV market in the Americas and said it would sell its TV manufacturing plant in Mexico and license its brand to China's Hisense Group.

"Sharp has not been able to fully adapt to the intensifying market competition, which led to significantly lower profits compared to the initial projections for the previous fiscal year, and has been suffering from poor earnings performance," Sharp said in a statement referring to its ailing TV business.

The embattled electronics maker along with posting a disappointing net loss, also said Friday its group operating loss came at 28.76 billion yen, tumbling from a 4.67 billion yen profit booked a year earlier, with sales totaling 618.30 billion yen, a drop of 0.2 percent.

Sharps' sales of displays, including those for smartphones, plummeted 9.2 percent, as Chinese makers upped the competition and captured more share of the lucrative market.

Having lost its status as the No. 1 screen maker in Asia and its former ties with tech giant Apple Inc., the firm was forced to borrow around 2 billion U.S. dollars in May this year in the second bailout in three years, which has led to restructuring, including axing 1,000s jobs at the firm and offering early retirement to 1000s of others.

Sharp's President Kozo Takahashi said that the company would continue to "explore various possibilities" in keeping the firm's head above water, and said that ideas such as collaborating on joint ventures and projects with other firms, were being seriously looked at.

"The market environment is now even tougher than what we expected in May when Sharp sought financing, Takahashi told a news conference in Tokyo.

"We haven't yet made any specific decision, but we need to consider a wider range of options than we did back in May when we said we were definitely going to carry on with the LCD business in its current form."

"Our company is still in a severe management condition. We will continue to accelerate restructuring efforts to realize the medium-term plan announced in May," he concluded.

Sharp, however, maintained its full year operating profit forecast through March 2016 at 80 billion yen, compared to a loss of 48.07 billion yen a year earlier on sales of 2.8 trillion yen, an increase of 0.5 percent, stating that it still eyes a V-shaped recovery. Endi