Business

Mon May 12 00:10:33 PDT 2008

TOKYO, May 12 (Reuters) – Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd reported on Monday a 53 pct fall in annual net profit, hurt by restructuring in its hard drive and microchip operations, but it forecast that its net income would double this year.

Fujitsu, which competes with International Business Machines Corp and Electronic Data Systems Corp in IT services, posted a net profit of 48.11 billion yen ($465.4 million) for the year that ended in March against a profit of 102.42 billion yen last year.

That beat a consensus forecast for a 45.18 billion yen operating profit by 13 analysts polled by Reuters.

Fujitsu, which postponed its earnings announcement by two weeks due to delays in getting approval from its auditors, said it expected its annual net profit to rise 108 percent to 100.00 billion yen for the year started in April.

That outlook compares with the mean estimate of 88.36 billion yen by 13 analysts.

Shares of Fujitsu lost 17 percent in April-March, against a 28 percent fall in Tokyo’s electrical machinery subindex IELEC.

(Reporting by Mayumi Negishi; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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