Japan's Toshiba Corp. will likely post an operating loss in the first half and significantly downgrade full-year forecasts as its chip business deteriorates, a report said Thursday.
A global slowdown is weakening demand for Toshiba's chips used in home electronics, while a supply glut is lowering prices of flash memory chips for mobile phones and portable music players, the Nikkei business daily said.
The electrical giant expects to suffer an operating loss of some 30 billion yen (290 million dollars) in the six months to September as a global slowdown hurts demand for microchips, the newspaper said.
The loss would be a turn-around from a year-before profit of 82.5 billion yen and the first time in five years the group has posted an operating loss for a first half.
Toshiba, whose businesses include US nuclear power plant maker Westinghouse, had earlier projected an operating profit of 70 billion yen.
Toshiba in a statement would not confirm the report, saying it was still compiling earnings data.