Slower chip sales add to Toshiba woes

Toshiba Corporation announced its latest financial results yesterday with the headline news that its operating profit fell in the third quarter by 25 per cent to JPY 43.1 billion (USD 404 million, EUR 274 million) in the three months ending December 31, 2007.

That was down to the Digital Products and Electronic Devices divisions, specifically mobile phones, hard disk drives and a "larger than anticipated sales decline in NAND flash memories".

Meanwhile the figures for the nine months ending December 31 show a consolidated operating income increase of JPY 3.5 billion (USD 32.8 million, EUR 22.2 million) to JPY 124.6 billion (USD 1.2 billion, EUR 791 million).

The results, when added to the recent raft of companies that have stated their preference to support Sony's Blu-ray rather than Toshiba's HD DVD, don't make for a happy start to 2008 for the corporation.

But despite that its share price rose slightly by 2.4 per cent to JPY 726 (USD 6.81, EUR 4.61) at the close of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.