Japan’s biggest makers of TVs, phones and chips say they will lose about $17 billion this year, about three-quarters of what Samsung Electronics Co. will spend on research to lengthen the lead over its competitors.

Sony Corp. more than doubled its annual loss forecast for the year ending March 31 as it announced a new chief executive officer, while Panasonic Corp. and Sharp Corp. predicted the worst losses in their histories. Their combined losses compare with the $22 billion that Samsung, Asia’s largest consumer- electronics company, said it will invest in capital expenditures.

Japanese companies hurt by a stronger yen, flooding that swamped Thailand factories and weaker demand for their TVs may not be able to regain ground lost to Samsung and Apple Inc. That’s prompting Sony and Panasonic to focus on sectors including medical devices, solar panels and rechargeable batteries in an effort to revive earnings.

“Japan’s consumer-electronics makers are in a total breakdown,” said Masamitsu Ohki, a fund manager at Stats Investment Management Co., a Tokyo-based hedge fund. “They need to compete with ideas, not technology.”

Samsung is the world’s biggest maker of TVs, memory chips and flat-screen panels, and the second-biggest manufacturer of mobile phones. The Suwon, South Korea-based company and its affiliates plan to spend 47.8 trillion won ($42 billion) this year on new product research and upgrading plants.

Harsh competition

Samsung, which doesn’t forecast annual results, reported a 17 percent rise in fourth-quarter net income.

“The Japanese consumer electronics makers shouldn’t compete with the Koreans in the same market,” said Koji Toda, chief fund manager at Resona Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. “The environment surrounding Japanese manufacturers is very harsh.”

Sony, Japan’s largest electronics exporter, predicted that its loss in the year ending in March will widen to 220 billion yen, leading to a fourth consecutive loss ― a first since the Tokyo-based company began trading in 1958.

Kazuo Hirai, named last week to take over as CEO starting April 1, said he will review the businesses and close less- competitive ones. Sony, worth more than $100 billion in 2000, is now valued at $18 billion.

Panasonic, Japan’s biggest appliance maker, forecast a 780 billion yen loss, the worst since the Osaka-based company was founded in 1918. Sharp, maker of the Aquos TVs, predicted a $3.8 billion loss, its worst in a century.

Thailand’s worst floods in 70 years shut factories making cameras and hard-disk drives, disrupting production and causing shortages during the holiday shopping season.

Strong yen, weak won

Samsung also benefits from the strengthening Japanese currency against the dollar, compared with the weakening won against the greenback.

The yen’s 7.3 percent surge against the dollar and 11 percent gain against the euro in the year damp the repatriated value of Japanese companies’ overseas sales. Sony earned 70 percent of its revenue outside Japan and Panasonic 48 percent.

Manufacturers have been forced to both relocate production outside of Japan and to press their suppliers for cost cuts.

By comparison, the won depreciated 1.3 percent against the dollar in the past year, helping Samsung, which earned 85 percent of its revenue in 2010 outside South Korea.

Samsung’s profit in the quarter ended in December advanced 17 percent to 4 trillion won, helped by smartphone sales that kept pace with Cupertino, California-based Apple. Sales rose 13 percent to 47.3 trillion won.

Apple’s record profit

“Samsung is a marvelous manufacturer,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research in Tokyo who manages $300 million. “They can make good things at a very low price. Sony can’t do that.”

Apple had a net income of $13.1 billion in the quarter ended Dec. 31, ranking it among the highest quarterly profits on record and putting the company in the same league as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Russia’s Gazprom OAO.

“Apple changed the paradigm of thinking,” Ohki said. “It would be very hard for the Japanese companies to recover unless they can get back the de facto standard for products like mobile phones from Apple.”

That’s what Sony wants to do. The company will strengthen mobile devices and expand in new areas such as medical, Hirai said Feb. 2.

In the television business, Sony hasn’t had a profit in the past seven years selling Bravia models, while bigger rivals Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. are profitable in the sector. Last year, Sony exited a joint venture with Samsung that makes panels as part of revamping the business, that’s set for an eighth year of losses in the year to March 31.

Sony’s financial services, music and movies businesses were all profitable in the year to March 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“We weren’t able to select areas where we want to concentrate, so we ended up keeping products that became commoditized,” Hirai said. “We want to make our focus clear soon.” 

(Bloomberg)