Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd., the country's major chip and computer manufacturers, on Tuesday reported net losses on an unconsolidated basis for the business year that ended March 31.

Toshiba Corp. posted a net loss of 15.6 billion yen, its first loss in 48 years, on sales of 3.4 trillion yen, down 7.9 percent from the previous year. The firm's pretax profit fell 87.3 percent to 4.9 billion yen.

The poor performance was attributed to a sharp decline in the price of memory chips and slackening domestic investment in computer systems in the industrial and public sectors, according to Toshiba officials.

On a consolidated basis, Toshiba Corp. reported a net loss of 13.9 billion yen on 5.3 trillion yen in sales, down 2.9 percent from the previous year. The company recorded a consolidated pretax profit of 11.2 billion yen, down 40.2 percent from the year before.

The decline in domestic sales overwhelmed sales growth in North America, Asia and Europe, the officials said.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu reported a net loss of 21.5 billion yen on 3.2 trillion yen in unconsolidated sales, down 1.2 percent from the previous year. Its unconsolidated pretax profit slid 82.4 percent to 15.7 billion yen.

In explaining the poor result, Fujitsu officials cited falling semiconductor prices and declining sales of equipment related to information and communications since domestic telecom carriers cut back on investment.

Although Fujitsu's consolidated sales grew 5.2 percent from the previous year to 5.2 trillion yen, its pretax profit fell 37.3 percent to 76.7 billion yen. The firm posted a net loss of 13.6 billion yen.