Posted by on May 17, 2004 - 01:22PM cet - IP :
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Citizen Watch profit soars on radio watches, LEDs
Reuters, 05.17.04

TOKYO, May 17 (Reuters) - Japan's Citizen Watch Co said on Monday that its profit more than tripled in the past business year on strong sales of radio-controlled watches and mobile phone parts, and forecast record earnings again this year.

Citizen, one of the world's top makers of wristwatches and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used to illuminate mobile phones, forecast group net profit to rise 2.7 percent to 20 billion yen ($175 million) in the year to March 2005 on sales of 400 billion yen, up 6.5 percent.

The company's forecast was above the market consensus of a 19 billion yen net profit on revenues of 383 billion yen, according to a poll of nine analysts by Reuters Research.

Through subsidiary Citizen Electronics, Citizen Watch is a major supplier of LED chips and liquid crystal display backlight units to the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and to Japan's top producer NEC Corp.

Last week, Citizen Electronics projected that its net profit would rise 32 percent in the year to March 2005, citing expectations for continued growth in the cellphone market and a higher percentage of phones equipped with colour screens.

Citizen Watch owns 66 percent of Citizen Electronics.

For the year ended March 31, Citizen Watch posted a 234.5 percent rise in consolidated net profit to a record 19.47 billion yen and sales of 375.72 billion yen, up 12.5 percent. Operating profit jumped 80.4 percent to 35.51 billion yen. ($1=114.56 yen)

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service