First Sony, now Panasonic swings into black and raises outlook

Sony isn’t the only electronics powerhouse reporting good news from the financial front these days. Today Panasonic, which, as you will remember, recently acquired Sanyo for $4.4 billion, announced it returned to profit in its fiscal third quarter (October to December 2009), too. The company’s profit nearly quadrupled to $1.1 billion, while revenue almost stayed the same at $20.1 billion in that quarter (on a year-on-year basis).

Panasonic says they managed to cope with the decline in prices for TVs and other electric appliances by cutting costs across the whole company and seeing robust TV sales. In Japan, the government indirectly helped the company (and others) by introducing a stimulus program that included rewarding buyers of eco-friendly TVs and other appliances (currently, Panasonic is the world’s fourth-largest flat TV maker – following Samsung, LG and Sony).

For the full fiscal year (that ends March 31), Panasonic still expects a net loss of $1.6 billion but raised its operating profit outlook to $1.7 billion from the October forecast of $1.3 billion. Sanyo’s numbers aren’t included in these financials yet.