Tokyo - Embattled Japanese electronics maker Sharp said on Thursday it would book a $5.6bn annual net loss in the wake of a huge restructuring, nearly double its earlier forecast.
Sharp has suffered deep losses in its television business with the maker of Aquos-brand electronics saying it would lose ¥450bn in the fiscal year to March, dwarfing its previous prediction of a ¥250bn shortfall.
Sharp also cut its sales forecast to ¥2.46 trillion from ¥2.50 trillion, while saying it lost ¥387.58bn in the first half of the current fiscal year to March, from a year-earlier loss of ¥39.82bn.
Like rivals Panasonic and Sony, Sharp has struggled in its television business amid falling prices and stiff competition from overseas rivals. Sharp was also struggling in its once-proud liquid crystal display (LCD) business.
"Our business environment continued to be severe, due to drastic price drops of products and devices, production delay of new small- and medium-size LCDs... and a worse-than-expected drop in sales of LCD TVs in Japan and China," the firm said.
"Sales of LCD TVs fell drastically... This was due mainly to decreased demand in Japan and a drop in sales in China caused by deteriorating Japan-China relations," it said in a statement.
Tokyo and Beijing have been embroiled in an increasingly hostile diplomatic spat over ownership of an East China Sea island chain with the row sparking a tumble in demand among Chinese consumers for Japan-branded exports.
Japanese manufacturers have also been pounded by the strong yen, which makes their products pricier overseas and shrinks the value of firms' repatriated foreign income.
Sharp is undergoing a painful restructuring in its efforts to return to profitability, promising thousands of job cuts while cutting wages for employees - from the factory floor to the executive boardroom - and selling real-estate to shore up its bleeding balance sheet.