Tokyo  - Sony Corp said Wednesday that its net profit nearly tripled to a record in the past fiscal year, which ended in March, as its operating profit rose fivefold from the year before, thanks to brisk sales of liquid crystal display televisions, digital cameras and personal computers.

Net profit for the Japanese home electronics company rose to 369.44 billion yen (3.55 billion dollars) from 126.3 billion yen, beating estimates, while its operating profit, which is a company's earning minus interest payments and taxes, surged to 374.5 billion yen from 71.8 billion yen.

Its operating profit, which is seen as a measure of a company's earnings power from ongoing operations, was the second-highest ever seen by Sony.

Sales also hit a record, rising 6.9 per cent from the year before to 8.87 trillion yen on rising sales of flat-screen TVs, digital cameras and PlayStation 3 videogame consoles.

Its fourth quarter, however, was not as rosy as Sony recorded an operating loss of 4.67 billion yen as it faced rising raw materials prices, a global slowdown prompted by the US mortgage crisis and tough competition in the flat-screen TV and videogame industries.

Net income for the quarter, however, was 6.17 billion yen after a 105.68-billion-yen loss in the same quarter a year earlier when Sony was dealing with high start-up costs for the PlayStation 3

Sales for the quarter fell 2.9 per cent to 1.83 trillion yen.

For the current fiscal year, Sony forecast its operating profit would rise 20.2 per cent to 450 billion yen on sales of 9 trillion yen, up 1.4 per cent.

But its net profit was expected to tumble 21.5 per cent to 290 billion yen. (dpa)