NEC swings to quarterly net profit

Japanese information technology firm NEC said Thursday it had swung to a net profit in the October-December quarter, thanks in part to improved sales in defence systems and mobile networks.

The firm's quarterly profit came to 3.5 billion yen ($38.5 million), reversing an 86.5 billion yen net loss in the same period a year earlier.

Operating profit was 24.4 billion yen, also reversing a year-earlier loss, on sales of 722 billion yen, up 7.9 percent.

Cost-cutting also helped results, it said.

NEC left unchanged its forecast for the year until March of a 20 billion yen net profit on sales of 3.15 trillion yen.