LG.Philips reports falling profits but sales are good

The world’s second largest maker of flat screen monitors, LG.Philips has reported that the profits in the last quarter fall down by almost 94%. However, not all was bad as the company beat the expectations of the market in the sales figure. And the company expects to bounce back with improved profits in the second half of the year.

The company experienced a loss in the first quarter of the year. However, the company increased prices and shipped more units to attain profitability back. Market analyst Kim Young-il spoke about the performance of the company: “The second-half outlook is clearly brighter than the first as relatively stable prices, the won currency’s weakness and increased shipments all point to better sales.”

LG.Philips recorded profits of around 1.66 trillion won profit in 2004. It only expects to make around a fifth of that figure this year. The revised forecast for the current year is now second-half profit of 387 billion won, which is an improvement from 326 billion a year ago. The company blames all these declining profits on the increasing competition in the market, which has led to massive fall in prices of the flat screen panel monitors.

The company said in a statement: “We expect a single digit rise in LCD prices by the end of the third quarter and the business outlook is also seen improving later this year.”