Sony's net profit for its first quarter reached 23.3 billion yenmillion dollars) compared to 1.1 billion yen a year earlier.

"Net income increased significantly mainly due to the contribution from (affiliates) ... including that from (Japanese-Swedish mobile phone manufacturing joint venture) Sony Ericsson," said Sony chairman and chief executive officer Nobuyuki Idei in a statement.

Sony Ericsson contributed 5.8 billion yen to Sony's consolidated earnings, reversing a 5.8 billion yen loss for the same period last year.

Despite the spectacular bottom line, revenue rose just 0.5 percent to 1.612 trillion yen and pretax profit slumped 81.5 percent to 6.6 billion yen.

Sony left its year to March 2005 forecasts unchanged, with net profit seen at 100 billion yen and pretax profit of 160 billion yen on revenue of 7.55 trillion yen.

One-off profits also boosted earnings at NEC Corp., which said its net profit rose to 20.9 billion yen compared with the year-earlier 700 million yen.

Pretax profit jumped 308.2 percent to 40.4 billion yen on sales of 1.06 trillion yen, up 2.5 percent.

The upturn was largely due a combined 26 billion yen of extraordinary profits from the transfer of marketable securities to the company's pension trust and on selling stocks holdings, said Yasuo Matoi, senior vice president.

A reduction in selling and administrative expenses also contributed to the solid results, he said.

NEC's IT solutions and electronics devices businesses enjoyed increased sales but revenue from mobile phone handsets fell by roughly 20 percent in the quarter as the overall market remained stagnant, Matoi said.

NEC also left unchanged its annual forecasts, expecting 70 billion yen in net profit and 180 billion yen in pretax profit on revenue of 4.94 trillion yen.

Quarterly profits rose also at Sharp Corp., the leading consumer electronics and liquid crystal display (LCD) maker, on strong sales of flat-screen TVs and cellphones.

Consolidated net profit totalled 19.6 billion yen, up 39.3 percent from a year earlier, with pretax profit increasing 28.7 percent to 32.9 billion yen.

Sales grew 17.5 percent to 601.2 billion yen, the company said.

"Led by increases in sales of large-size wide-screen models, sales of LCD colour TVs continued to grow," the firm said in a statement.

For the year to March 2005, Sharp said it expects net profit of 75 billion yen and recurring profit of 140 billion yen on sales of 2.53 trillion yen, unchanged from forecasts announced in April.

Japan's No. 3 electrical machinery maker Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said its net profit in the first quarter was nearly 19 times the year-earlier level on brisk sales of factory automation systems for use at LCD and semiconductor plants, combined with aggressive cost cuts.

Net profit jumped to 12.4 billion yen, while pretax profit was up 194.4 percent to 24.5 billion yen.

Sales dipped 2.0 percent to 725.3 billion yen in the first quarter, hit largely by the spin-offs last year of its system LSI (large scale integrated circuit) and industrial system operations, combined with the appreciation of the yen, said Mitsubishi Electric executive Yukihiro Sato.

For the first quarter, buoyant sales of its air conditioning systems, as well as an improvement in the profitability of its electronics devices division provided an additional boost to profit growth in the first quarter, he said.

The company left its full year forecast unchanged at a 65 billion yen net profit and a 95 billion yen pretax profit on revenue of 3.40 trillion yen.

SPACE.WIRE