Sharp sounds profit warning

Tokyo

SHARP Corp said its annual earnings were likely to fall short of its official guidance citing a slowing China market, a factor that Taiwan's Foxconn is expected to use to lower its offer for the loss-making Japanese display maker.

The statement was in response to a report by the Yomiuri newspaper on Friday that Sharp could book an operating loss of "tens of billions of yen" for the year ending this month, mirroring a Reuters report earlier this week. Sources have told Reuters that Sharp will likely book an annual loss of that scale rather than the 10 billion yen (S$121.3 million) operating profit it had forecast in October.