Matsushita posts first ever loss

Matsushita joined electronics maker Sony in the red, and will now give employees early retirement and cut capital spending

By staff and wire reports

KADOMA, Japan -- The world's biggest consumer-electronics maker, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., on Tuesday posted its first-ever quarterly loss.

Matsushita announced an operating loss of $309 million (38.7 billion yen) for the June quarter, and said it would will likely fall to a loss for the first half of the fiscal year, which runs through September.

The maker of Panasonic, National, Technics and JVC products had a net loss of 19.4 billion yen for the quarter, compared with a net profit of 9.4 billion yen the same period last year.

The losses were worse than expected. Analysts had forecast an operating loss of 20-30 billion yen.

TVs, CDs, DVDs

Matsushita gets around 40 percent of its sales from consumer electronics such as televisions, video recorders and DVD and CD players.

It also sells computers, phones and electronics parts and does 70 percent of its business in Asia.

The company blamed slumping demand for electronics goods. In the second quarter, group sales fell 5.6 percent to 1.67 trillion yen, from 1.77 trillion yen the same quarter a year ago.

Its efforts to cut costs didn't offset the effects of lagging demand and stiff competition.

In response, the company said it would offer early retirement to many of its workers. It's giving the option to employees under 58 who have worked there 10 years or more.

The company also cut its spending plans for this fiscal year to 320 billion yen, down 100 billion yen on the previous year.

Matsushita, based in the Japanese city of Kadoma in Osaka prefecture, edges out Sony as the largest maker of consumer electronics.

Sony shocked the financial world last week when it announced a 90 percent decline in profits for the June quarter.

Stock trading up

That saw its stock give up 17.5 percent in two days, before it turned around to gain 5.5 percent on Tuesday. It stood at 6,150 yen at the end of Tokyo trade.

Matsushita's earnings announcement came after the bell in Japan. Its stock rose 3.9 percent to 1,740 yen on Tuesday, a good day for Japanese techs.

Matsushita said it expects a net loss of 45.0 billion yen for the first half of the business year, through September, on 1.99 trillion yen in sales.

Reuters contributed to this report.