Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. said Wednesday it incurred group net losses of 18.21 billion yen in the fiscal half ended Sept. 30, reversing the previous year's profit of 3.67 billion yen.
Group pretax losses for the major integrated steelmaker came to 9.72 billion yen, sharply down from its profit of 4.4 billion yen a year earlier on a 6.5 percent fall in total sales to 656.37 billion yen.
The company blamed the worsened earnings on poor sales of electronics and data communications devices due to a steep fall in semiconductor demand.
One-off losses from covering a shortfall in retirement benefit reserves and from extraordinary losses incurred to promote restructuring also sapped its net balance.
Group net loss per share stood at 5.01 yen, compared with a 1.10 yen per-share profit a year earlier.
For the entire fiscal year through March 31, the company said it expects to post a group net loss of 90 billion yen, compared with 5.84 billion yen the previous year, and zero group pretax profit, down from 23.63 billion yen, on total sales of 1.36 trillion yen, down from 1.5 trillion yen.