Sharp Expecting Sharp Loss

Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. hasn’t posted a quarterly loss since it began reporting earnings in 1953.

Well, there’s a first time for everything. And with the widening gyre of the recession as backdrop, the company now expects to report one. Sharp this morning revised its earnings outlook to a loss for its current fiscal year.

Back in October, the company forecast a net profit of 60 billion yen for its fiscal year ending March 31. Today it changed that forecast to a net loss of 100 billion yen.

Ugly.

Said Sharp Director Tetsuo Onishi: “The decline in LCD-TV prices was so steep that it pushed our business into the red, and was so sharp that our cost-cutting efforts couldn’t keep pace.” In hopes of catching up, Sharp plans to cut 1,500 part-time jobs and shutter some production lines at two liquid crystal display manufacturing plants in Japan.