Hoya shares tumble 10 pct on Q3 earnings, outlook

Shares of Hoya Corp slid 10 percent on Monday after it posted a weaker-than-expected gain in quarterly profit and forecast its annual profit would fall for the first time in six years, hit by falling prices of glass used to make flat panels and a delay in its shift to advanced hard drive disks.

Operating profit at Hoya, which is roughly half-owned by foreign investors, came to 27.53 billion yen in October-December, up 1.1 percent from the 27.2 billion yen booked in the same period last year.

But that fell short of the market consensus of 30.3 billion yen, according to the average forecast of four analysts polled by Reuters Estimates, and Hoya predicted that its annual profit would fall for the first time since the year ended March 2002.

Hoya had not issued a forecast for the full year to March in line with its policy of waiting until it announces third-quarter results.

Hoya said its earnings were being weighed down by tumbling prices of masks used to make liquid crystal displays and a delay in the production of hard disks with a so-called "perpendicular recording method".

Hoya had flagged the slower-than-expected shift to the perpendicular recording method earlier this year. Hard disks using the new method can hold more data than conventional disks.

After the earnings announcement, shares of Hoya extended earlier losses to slide 10.1 percent to 3,110 yen, underperforming a 3 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei share average .