Japan Major 6 Electric Wire Makers Post Higher Profit in 1H

Japanese major 6 electric wire makers posted higher consolidated sales and operating profit for the first half year to September from same period of 2005. They enjoyed favorable market condition when the selling price increased more than expected under firm demand for electric wire and cable. Firm demand for information and communication industry also lifted the operating profit for the top 3 firms including Sumitomo Electric Industries, Furukawa Electric and Fujikura. They also reported some cost push burden and increasing working capital due to copper price surge in April-May. Their electric wire and cable units were suffered from higher copper price until second half of fiscal 2005 ended March 2006. However, they realized higher selling price mainly for building electric wire, which uses copper more than other applications, in the first half when domestic official copper price stayed less than 1 million yen per tonne since July. The units posted higher sales and profit due to higher price and sales volume under firm demand. Demand for information and communication was firm for optical components and parts of housing optical networking. Furukawa Electric posted the first profit for optical fiber and cable unit after first half of 2000. The profitability contributed to profit for the firm. Sumitomo Electric posted 4.3 times operating profit at 3.3 billion yen and Fujikura posted 2.5 times profit at 7.1 billion yen for information and communication business.