As competition is tougher than last year at this time, and taxes and raw material costs in Japan are increasing, only Matsushita Electronics (Panasonic) realized a net profit for the First Quarter, 2008.

Sony announced a record net profit fall of 47.4% to 34.98 billion Yen (209 million Euros), while Toshiba recorded a net loss of 11.6 billion Yen (69 million Euros). As for Panasonic, the company increased its net profit 85% compared with same period last year.

Sony announced a revised forecasted profit for the full year from 290 billion Yen to 240 billion Yen due to the Yen’s advance against the US Dollar. Even with the increase in TV and video games activity (the video game sector recorded a turn over increase of 16.8% thanks to PS3 and PSP which have become more and more popular), Sony also reduced its margin due to comptitors.

Toshiba blamed the sharp declines in semiconductor sales price. Flash memory NAND sales of were not good enough due to price drops. Toshiba also accused a strong Yen, but decided to keep its profit forecast steady at 130 billion yen.

Despite a turnover decline (of 4%), Matsushita saw its net profit rise 85.8% mainly thanks to cost-cutting efforts, but also after having eliminated Victor-JVC from its earning due to Victor’s share decline.

According to a survey conducted by Nikkei, Japanese people prefer Panasonic over Sony. The survey revealed that consumers perfer Matsushita products because they feel their more sophisticated and design oriented.