Three of Japan’s largest electronics companies have reported a combined profit fall of £777 million in just three months due to a slump in consumer demand.

Toshiba, Sony and Fujitsu said today that their second-quarter results had been affected by a global economic slowdown that had cut demand for consumer electronics.

Toshiba, which makes goods from nuclear reactors to microchips and LCD TVs, said that its operating profits in the three months to the end of September fell 99 per cent to 707 million yen (£4.5 million).

Sony’s net profit in the same period fell 72 per cent to 20.8 billion yen while Fujitsu’s operating profit dropped 20 per cent to 32.7 billion yen.

Their combined fall in profits was 121.7 billion yen and all three have now significantly cut their forecasts for full-year profits.

Toshiba and Fujitsu have been hit by weakness in the microchip sector, which has been caused by lower demand for consumer products such as MP3 players, computers and hard drives.

Toshiba said that the price of flash memory chips, which are used in devices such as Apple’s iPod and digital cameras, had fallen 45 per cent in the past six months because of falling demand for retail electronics and an oversupply of chips.

The company said today that it expects its full-year operating profits to be 37 per cent lower than last year at 150 billion yen.

Fujitsu is also targeting full-year profits of 150 billion yen, down 27 per cent from last year.

Last week, Sony cut its full-year forecast by 59 per cent and it too is predicting profits of 150 billion yen.

Sony said that fluctuations in the value of the yen against the US dollar had offset gains in flat-screen television and PlayStation 3 sales.

The company’s sales in the second quarter dropped 0.5 per cent to 2 trillion yen but sales of the PS3 gaming machine rose by 85 per cent.

However, its stake in Sony Ericsson, the mobile phone maker, lost 1.6 billion yen and Sony BMG, the music label, lost 3.1 billion yen.

Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's chief financial officer, said: “We already expect a poor performance for the Christmas shopping season. On how things will fare after Christmas, I can only say we will continue to keep a careful look.”

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