TCL Corp, one of China‘s largest consumer electronics makers, yesterday reported a huge loss for the first half of this year.
　　
　　The company was in the red to the tune of 692.6 million yuan (US$85.4 million) from January to June, TCL said in a statement yesterday to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
　　
　　The loss is in sharp contrast with a net profit of 373 million yuan (US$46 million) during the same period last year.
　　
　　TCL‘s revenue reached 24.4 billion yuan (US$3 billion) during the first half, a year-on-year increase of 65.39 percent.
　　
　　The company‘s performance was dragged down by declining profit margins, especially in its television and mobile phone businesses.
　　
　　TCL‘s television joint venture with French company Thomson SA and mobile phone venture with Alcatel SA are still losing money with prices falling amid stiff competition.
　　
　　"The company is still undergoing restructuring," said Chen Yuanwang, an industry analyst at China Securities. "Synergies can be seen only after six months."
　　
　　TCL forecast a continued loss for the third quarter, the company said in another statement yesterday.
　　
　　It attributed possible further losses to unprofitable joint ventures, and a sharp fall in sales of TCL Mobile.
　　
　　The news sent its Shenzhen-listed shares down by 2.8 percent to 2.08 yuan (25.64 US cents) yesterday.
　　
　　The shares have fallen over 40 percent this year, compared with a 13.3 percent decline in the Shenzhen composite index.
　　
　　According to the statement, TCL‘s handset unit - TCL Communication - sold 4.83 million mobile phones during the first six months, a year-on-year increase of 10 percent. The sales rise was mainly attributed to its joint venture TCL & Alcatel Mobile Phone Ltd (T&A).
　　
　　Sales of TCL Communication‘s subsidiary TCL Mobile dropped by 57 percent to 1.91 million units.
　　
　　Hong Kong-listed TCL Communication on Tuesday reported a loss of HK$853 million (US$109.8 million) for the first half.
　　
　　The gross profit margin for mobile phones plunged by 21.7 percentage points to 0.34 percent.
　　
　　"Competition in the global handset industry remains intense in the second half, and the company faces great challenges in plans to consolidate the business and raise profitability," TCL Corp said in the statement.
　　
　　The company entered into agreement with Alcatel to fully integrate T&A into the group as a wholly-owned subsidiary, which is expected to build a better foundation for achieving synergy.
　　
　　TCL‘s other Hong Kong-listed subsidiary TCL Multimedia posted a first-half loss of HK$96 million (US$12.4 million) on Tuesday.
　　
　　(China Daily September 1, 2005)