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Pioneer to slash 10,000 jobs

PIONEER Corp will cut 10,000 jobs and close its television operations as the slump in global electronics sales forced the company to widen its annual loss forecast to a record 130 billion yen (US$1.44 billion).

The company will withdraw from the TV business by March 2010 and cut 16 percent of its full-time work force, plus 4,000 temporary positions, Tokyo-based Pioneer said yesterday. The net loss in the year ending March 31 compares with the 78 billion yen deficit it estimated on October 30. Sales will probably fall 28 percent to 560 billion yen, the company said.

Pioneer, poised for a fifth annual deficit, lost a combined 100.6 billion yen at its home electronics business, including plasma TV operations, since the year ended March 2004. The recession increases the challenge for President Susumu Kotani, who took charge in November, to restore profitability by relying on sales of car-navigation systems even as auto sales plunge, Bloomberg News reported.

"The share market will take the loss forecast as a message that Pioneer cannot survive by itself," said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees US$615 million of assets at Tokyo-based Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co in Tokyo.

"The consumer-electronics industry has entered a stage where a company on the brink of a cliff falls down."

The company had 141.8 billion yen in total shareholders equity as of December 31, Pioneer said in a statement.

As part of the restructuring, Pioneer will cut about 30 percent of its 30 production units worldwide, it said in a statement. The company will shut a plasma panel-making factory in the United Kingdom this month, and another in the United States in April.

In the year ending March, Pioneer forecast an operating loss, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, of 69 billion yen, more than three times its projection of 17 billion yen.

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