First quarter loss for Hitachi

Hitachi Construction Machinery reported first quarter sales to June 30 of JPY 132 billion (US$ 1.3 billion), down -43% on the JPY 233 billion (US$ 2.4 billion) recorded 12 months ago. Pre-tax profits of JPY 12.5 billion (US$ 131 million) for the first quarter of 2008 dropped to a -JPY 8.5 billion (-US$ 90 million) loss.

"Demand for construction machinery fell far short of our assumption, especially in advanced nations such as Japan, the US and Europe," said Michijiro Kikawa, president and CEO.

"In China, Indonesia and Malaysia we are now seeing some growth, at a greater rate than we expected, although we don't believe it will be able to compensate for the drop in demand in other areas," he added.

As a result of reduced sales, Hitachi Construction Machinery has downgraded its forecast for the year ending March 2010.

"We announced in April that we expected sales this year of JPY 6.2 trillion (US$ 65 billion), we've now revised that down a further -4.6% to JPY 5.9 trillion (US$ 62 billion)," said Mr Kikawa.