Panasonic Corp.’s share price down, posts full-year expectations that miss analysts’ estimates due to decreasing consumer electronics demand

Panasonic Corp. made an official statement today, revealing projections for its full-year profit. The company announced that its net income is expected to increase by 16% and to reach 140 billion yen (1.4 billion dollars) over the current financial year, which started April 1st. The company also added that it will continue following the strategy of reshuffling its units and will trim the unprofitable consumer electronics production.

Panasonic Corp. also revealed that its operating profit for the quarter through March, increased by 90% and reached 305.11 billion yen. The companys revenue also increased by 5.9% to 7.74 trillion yen. Panasonic said that it expects sales estimated to 7.75 trillion yen and an operating profit that amounts to 310 billion yen over the 2014 fiscal year. The forecast presented by the company matched the one it made on March 27th.

However, the figures presented by Panasonic Corp., were lower than the median analysts estimate for its full-year results, which are considered to be modest, due to decreasing televisions and personal computers demand. Yoshiriho Nakatani, who is a senior fund manager working at Asahi Life Asset Management Co. commented the companys forecast in a Bloomberg interview: “The concerns they will fall into a crisis have receded significantly. They’ve cut loss-making businesses.”

The company has been recently following a strategy of disposing unprofitable units, such as chip-manufacturing and health-care divisions . In March 2014 Panasonics Chief Executive Officer Kazuhiro Tsuga revealed that the company has set a goal of increasing its sales to 10 trillion yen by 2018.

In order for the changes to be implemented, the company has said that it would allocate about 300 billion yen over the two years ending March 2015. The figures include restructuring costs estimated to 207.4 billion yen for the fiscal 2013.

Panasonic Corp. was 0.71% down to close at 1,120 Japanese yen per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +57.97%. According to the information published on the Financial Times, the 14 analysts offering 12-month price targets for Panasonic Corp. have a median target of 1,275, with a high estimate of 1,550 and a low estimate of 920.00. The median estimate represents a 13.03% increase from the last price of 1,128.