NEC Corp. said Thursday it stayed in the red in fiscal 2002 for the second consecutive year, with a consolidated net loss of 24.56 billion yen.

Although the loss was sharply less than the previous year's 312.02 billion yen, NEC failed to meet its forecast of 10 billion yen in net profit.

NEC attributed the fall mostly to 20.44 billion yen in losses resulting from poor performance in semiconductor-related affiliates.

The firm also said it was hit by losses stemming from changes in taxation rules.

Net loss per share came to 14.85 yen, down from 188.63 yen.

On a pretax basis, however, NEC posted a group profit of 61.5 billion yen in 2002, a reversal from a loss of 461.18 billion yen the previous year. The turnaround was credited to a drop in fixed and other costs as a result of operational restructuring implemented during fiscal 2001.

NEC, which compiles business results in accordance with U.S. accounting standards, reported 4.69 trillion yen in consolidated sales, down 8 percent, due in part to sluggish revenues in the network infrastructure and mobile terminal businesses.

Total sales included 2.08 trillion yen in the information technology solutions business, down 5.7 percent, and 1.58 trillion yen in the network solutions business, down 19.5 percent.

NEC said it will skip dividend payments for the year. The company paid 6 yen per share in 2001.

For the current business year, NEC expects group net profits of 30 billion yen and a pretax profit of 120 billion yen, on consolidated sales of 4.8 trillion yen.

NEC based its forecast on the assumption that overseas mobile phone operators will boost their services in fiscal 2003 while the business climate in the communications infrastructure market will remain difficult.

The company has yet to decide whether to resume dividend payments for fiscal 2003.