Komatsu Ltd. said Friday it expects a larger-than-forecast group net loss for fiscal 2001, blaming a a sharp fall in demand for construction machinery that was caused by falling public investment and construction investment.
The country's largest maker of construction machinery also attributed the downward revision to an appraisal loss of 4 billion yen on its stockholdings, combined with worse-than-expected earnings results from its U.S. unit, Advanced Silicon Materials LLC, due to a global slump in the semiconductor industry.
Komatsu projects a group net loss of 79 billion yen, up sharply from the net loss of 45 billion yen forecast in November.
The company increased its group pretax loss projection to 107 billion yen, more than double its earlier estimated 52 billion yen, on sales of 1.03 trillion yen, down from the earlier projected 1.06 trillion yen.
In the previous year, the company posted a group net profit of 6.91 billion yen and a group pretax profit of 20.06 billion yen on sales of 1.1 trillion yen.