Viscas Estimates Power Transmission Cable Export Rebound by 50% in F2011

Viscas Corporation, a fifty-fifty joint company between Furukawa Electric and Fujikura to manufacture power transmission and distributions cables, estimates the company’s overseas sales value rebounds by about 50% in a full year of fiscal 2011 ending in March 2012 compared with fiscal 2010. Viscas posted 27.5 billion yen full-year overseas sales in fiscal 2010, which decreased by about 40% from fiscal 2009. Power transmission cable export is expected to recover in fiscal 2011 along the improvement of the company’s order receipt volume.

Viscas posted 61 billion yen net sales with 1.2 billion yen net profit in a full year of fiscal 2010, including 600 million yen extraordinary loss related to the restoration of Ichihara plant in Chiba, Japan and other facilities damaged by Japan Earthquake. In fiscal 2009, the full-year net sales were 81 billion yen and the net profit hit record 3.6 billion yen.

In fiscal 2010, cable shipment to domestic power companies was steady when power companies implemented renewals of old power transmission facilities. Meanwhile, cable export for overseas projects largely decreased since order backlogs temporarily decreased after Lehman Shock. At the same time, price competitions became severer between offshore power cable makers. Some of the overseas projects were delayed, too.

Viscas is now reviewing the financial forecast for fiscal 2011 since Japanese power companies’ investment plans are unforeseeable in the current circumstances. Meanwhile, export sales are expected to rebound in fiscal 2011 including a large-scale order receipt for underground power transmission cables in Abu Dhabi.

Viscas has succeeded in order volume recovery for overseas power transmission projects since the second half of fiscal 2010. However, price competition is recently increasing again between power cable makers in Europe, South Korea or China, mainly due to continuously strong yen trend against other currencies. Viscas tries to keep the export competitiveness by new product development and cost cut effort.