TOKYO -- Fuji Electric is now expected to post an operating profit of around 6 billion yen ($55 million) for the six months ended Sept. 30, roughly double on the year and topping an earlier projection of 4.5 billion yen.
Sales rose an estimated 5% to 345 billion yen or so, surpassing a forecast by around 5 billion yen. Demand grew at home and abroad for building new factories and updating production equipment to automate processes and save energy. This lifted sales of power chip devices, used to control the supply of electricity. Sales were also strong for inverters to control industrial machinery and for other power electronics devices.
