Thanks to favorable performance in the electronic device business, Toshiba Corp. has revised its consolidated sales forecast to 2.9 trillion yen, up 120 billion yen from its initial forecast, for the six-month period through Sept. 30, the company announced Monday.

Accordingly, Toshiba revised forecasts upward for pretax profit from 65 billion yen to 105 billion yen as well as net profit from 35 billion yen to 50 billion yen on a consolidated basis.

A senior Toshiba official attributed the favorable business performance to good semiconductor business led by strong demand for such products as cellular phones and DVD players.

As another reason for the favorable performance, the official cited the weak yen, which boosted the yen-denominated amount of its earning on exports.

Accordingly, Toshiba revised consolidated sales forecast from 6.1 trillion yen to 6.24 trillion yen for fiscal 2000, which ends March 31, 2001. The group also changed its forecasts for pretax profit from 180 billion yen to 250 billion yen as well as for net profit from 100 billion yen to 135 billion yen.

If realized, the net profit will be the company's highest to date, the senior official said.

More contract work

Toshiba Corp. plans to increase commission work for the manufacture of semiconductors so that it can concentrate more on development, company officials said Monday.

The major electronics maker currently contracts out about 10 percent of its chip production but hopes to raise the amount to about 25 percent in the next three years.

By having other companies make products that can be mass-produced, Toshiba aims to direct more investment toward the development of semiconductors, they said.

Toshiba's electronic parts department posted operating losses of 23.6 billion yen in fiscal 1999, due partly to stiffer sales competition in the semiconductor industry.

Toshiba is expected to commission work to companies such as Windbord Electronics Corp. of Taiwan and Tower Semiconductor Ltd. of Israel in the future.