Chips are down as Toshiba logs ¥145.63 billion loss for April-December

Toshiba Corp. said Friday it posted a group net loss of ¥145.63 billion ($1.32 billion) in the April-December period due to the sluggish performance of its affiliated semiconductor business.

The loss is a sharp drop from the profit of ¥1.02 trillion it reported in the same period a year earlier.

The technology conglomerate said its group operating profit rose more than sevenfold from a year earlier to ¥62.52 billion in the nine-month period, due partly to cost-cutting efforts, on sales of ¥2.46 trillion, down 7.1 percent.

For the fiscal year through March, Toshiba maintained its outlook for group operating profit at ¥140 billion, but cut its forecast for group sales to ¥3.43 trillion from ¥3.44 trillion.

The company did not provide a projection for net profit, citing difficulty in forecasting the earnings of its affiliated chipmaker Kioxia Holdings Corp., formerly known as Toshiba Memory Holdings Corp.

Toshiba holds 40.2 percent voting rights in the chip company after it sold the rest of the shares to an international consortium of U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital and South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc. in 2018 as part of restructuring measures.

Last month, Toshiba said its CEO Nobuaki Kurumatani, who is experienced in the financial services industry from his time at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., will take on the role of president April 1, with Satoshi Tsunakawa, the current president, becoming chairman without the right to represent the company.

It is the first time in 48 years that the electronics conglomerate has opted for a president who has not been with the firm throughout his career.

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