By Zeba Fatima
 
Japanese electronics maker Sharp is expecting a full-year net loss of AUD $3.8 billion, blaming falling prices, a high yen and the global economic slowdown.
 
The firm expects a net loss of 290 billion yen for the year to March, reversing an earlier projection of a 6 billion yen net profit.

For the nine months to December Sharp's sales fell 18.3% and operating income dropped 86.3%.
 
"Major price falls of products and devices such as LCD colour televisions and solar batteries as well as a dramatic increase of the yen resulted in the lower revenues," the company said in a statement.

Sharp said it will halve the output at its largest TV panel factory in Sakai city, Osaka prefecture.

Global liquid-crystal display TV shipments probably gained 8% to 206 million units last year, falling short of an earlier projection of 211 million units, according to DisplaySearch.

The shipments rose 13% in the quarter ended December 31 from a year earlier, according to the researcher, which estimates annual shipments to rise 10% in 2012.

“It was a surprise Sharp announced such a big downward revision,” said Tsunenori Ohmaki, analyst at Tachibana Securities Co.

“I’m not sure whether the production cuts announced by the company until summer will be enough.”
 
For the year to March, the company expects only to break even at the operating level, compared with an earlier forecast of 85 billion yen in profit. It lowered its sales estimate by 8.9% to 2.55 trillion yen from 2.80 trillion yen.