Japan's NEC group net profit surges to 15.4 billion yen

TOKYO (AFP) Oct 23, 2003
Major Japanese high-tech company NEC Corp. said Thursday its group net profit in the six months to September surged 15 times from a year earlier largely due to huge gains from the listing of two subsidiaries.

The consolidated interim net profit amounted to 15.4 billion yenmillion dollars), up from 1.0 billion yen a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

NEC's pre-tax profit in the half year nearly quadrupled to 77.7 billion yen, compared with 20.3 billion yen a year earlier, on sales which gained 5.0 percent to 2.28 trillion yen, the statement added.

"The main reason for such an increase in interim (pre-tax) income before income taxes was that NEC recorded a considerable amount of gains from stock issuances as a result of the listings of NEC Electronics Corp. and NEC System Technologies," the statement said.

NEC Electronics went public in July in one of the largest initial public offerings in Japan this year, while NEC System Technologies was floated last month.

For the full year to March 2004, the major semiconductor manufacturer forecast a group net profit of 40 billion, compared with a net loss of 24.5 billion yen in the previous year.

NEC's full-year pre-tax profit was estimated at 160 billion yen, 2.6 times the previous year's level, on sales worth 4.85 trillion yen, up 3.0 percent, the statement said.

SPACE.WIRE