Nikon's net profit came to 69 million yen (579,800 dollars) in the June quarter, with recurring profit standing at 553 million yen on sales of 112.89 billion yen.

No comparisons were available as it was the first time Nikon has reported quarterly earnings.

The company, which is also a major producer of semiconductor manufacturing equipment steppers, left unchanged forecasts for the full year to March 2004 -- a net profit of five billion yen, recurring profit of nine billion yen on sales of 570 billion yen.

"The situation in the precision equipment sector continued to be severe as semiconductor manufacturers were still cautious with capital spending despite the recovery trend in the semiconductor market," the firm said in a statement.

Nikon's precision equipment division had an operating loss of 8.6 billion yen on sales of 25 billion yen.

But sales of cameras and lenses made an operating profit of 9.7 billion yen on sales of 73.5 billion yen as "the market for digital cameras is growing noticeably," Nikon said.

The company sold 1.04 million digital cameras for the quarter, in line with the company's projection of 4.6 million units sales for the full year.

SPACE.WIRE