Despite the outcome, the company left its full year to March forecast unchanged, unlike many of its peers such as NEC and Fujitsu.

The net loss for the three months to December stood at 17.6 billion yen (171 million dollars) against a net profit of 9.9 billion yen a year earlier. Its pretax loss came to 11.9 billion yen, reversing a pretax profit of 18.1 billion yen as revenue fell 5.0 percent to 620.6 billion yen.

"Competition in the Japanese digital camera market grew so severe and a slump in domestic sales and falling prices for digital cameras hit us hard," said a Sanyo spokesman.

During the three months, Sanyo's sales of digital cameras fell 24.8 percent from a year earlier to 48.5 billion yen with semiconductor products down 21.4 percent at 51.1 billion yen.

The company's loss reflected from damage to its chip-making plant in quake-hit Niigata, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Tokyo.

Niigata was rocked on October 23 by a quake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale which killed 40 people and injured some 2,900.

Sanyo estimated the quake cost it 87 billion yen, including 50.3 billion yen worth of physical damage to the factory.

For the year to March 2005, Sanyo left its forecast unchanged at a net loss of 71 billion yen and a pretax loss of 47 billion yen on sales of 2.53 trillion yen.

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