Tokyo, Feb 04: Japans's Casio Computer said that its operating profit surged 71% in the nine months to December on brisk sales of digital cameras, e-dictionaries and small liquid crystal displays. Japan's top maker of e-dictionaries and a major manufacturer of digital cameras, posted a nine-month consolidated operating profit of 17.8bn yen, up about 71% compared with the same period a year ago.
Nine-month sales rose 18% to 368.5bn yen. Net profit totalled 7.6bn yen. Casio did not say how much net profit rose from a year earlier, but it has already surpassed its profit total for all of ’02-03 of 5.7bn yen.
Casio has introduced a string of hit products in the past year, such as the ultra-thin Exilim series of digital cameras including the recently launched EX-Z4 model with a resolution of 4m pixels and a two-inch LCD.
“Watches, digital cameras, electronic dictionaries, cellphones and TFT-LCDs, our mainstay products are doing well,” said MD Akinori Takagi. “It was a well-balanced nine months for us, in terms of both profits and sales.”
The firm maintained its full-year outlook for net profit to rise 94% to 11bn yen on sales of 500bn yen, but said the forecast was conservative in light of strong demand.
Bureau Report