Kyocera Bucks Tech Downtrend With Profit Upgrade

Kyocera Corp. recently bucked the trend among Japan's big electronics makers for profit warnings by boosting its earnings outlook for the year to March. The company, which specializes in fine ceramics and ceramic packages for chips, raised its consolidated operating profit forecast for the year to March 31 to 213 billion yen ($1.84 billion) on sales of 1.29 trillion yen. It had previously forecast profit of 205 billion yen and sales of 1.28 trillion yen. Kyocera said sales of fine ceramics for optic fiber networks had exceeded expectations, while weakness in the yen against the dollar and the euro had bolstered the yen value of overseas income. The company also sharply raised its forecasts for consolidated pretax and net profit, reflecting an increase in net assets at telecoms affiliate DDI Corp. after it merged on October 1 with two other carriers. Its group net forecast was raised to 215 billion yen from 115 billion yen, while the pretax profit estimate was boosted to 400 billion yen from 217 billion yen.