Panasonic raises annual profit forecast 20%, sees strong AI demand (updated)

Panasonic Holdings

Yesterday 07:31

Updates with CEO comments in 2nd bullet point, writes through on group operating profit forecast upgrade
TOKYO, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Panasonic Holdings 6752.T raised its full-year operating profit forecast by 20% to 710 billion yen ($4.5 billion) on Friday, helped by a range of factors including stronger-than-expected AI-related demand.
     
The Japanese company lifted its group operating profit forecast for the year ending March 2027 from 590 billion yen previously, raising it for the second successive quarter
Group CEO Yuki Kusumi told reporters that AI-related demand had been stronger than expected. He added that the extent of the improvement had been a "surprise", even though he had expected some room for a further upgrade
Factors behind the upgrade included a boost from price changes, favourable foreign exchange rates, the absence of the US tariff impact seen a year earlier and higher AI-linked sales at its Industry business
Operating profit at its key Energy unit, which supplies electric-vehicle batteries to Tesla TSLA.O and other EV makers, surged to 55.6 billion yen in the second quarter from 1.2 billion yen a year earlier
Panasonic also raised the unit's full-year profit forecast for the year ending March 2027 by 16% to 198 billion yen from 171 billion yen previously
It said the unit's quarterly operating profit grew due to higher sales of EV batteries in North America and data centre energy storage systems
The Industry business benefited from higher sales of capacitors and multilayer circuit-board materials for AI infrastructure
($1 = 157.5300 yen)

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Sonia Cheema, Kirsten Donovan)
((daniel.leussink@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @danielleussink;))