Tokyo  - Canon Inc on Wednesday reported a 91-per-cent decline in its net profit in the fourth quarter while it also forecast its lowest earnings in 10 years for 2009 because of the strength of the yen and price declines.

The world's largest camera maker said it expected its earnings for the current year to fall 68.3 per cent from last year to 98 billion yen
(1.1 billion dollars).

Operating profit would drop 67.7 per cent to 160 billion yen while sales would sink 14.5 per cent to 3.5 trillion yen, the Tokyo-based electronics company said.

In the final quarter of 2008, Canon saw net profit of 11.62 billion yen after reporting 127.8 billion yen in the same quarter a year earlier.

The plunge helped lower its full-year net profit to 309.15 billion yen, a drop of 36.7 per cent from 2007. Sales in 2008 fell 8.6 per cent to
4.1 trillion yen, it said.

Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp, the world's largest consumer-electronics makers, had already reported that they also expecting steep profit declines as recessions in Europe, Japan and the United States cut into their sales and on the strengthening yen.

Tokyo-based Sony, which is slashing 16,000 jobs to cut costs, said last week that it expected a record operating loss of 260 billion yen - its first operating loss in 14 years - in its current fiscal year, which ends March 31.

At the end of November, Osaka-based Panasonic also sank its projections for net income for the same period by 90 per cent to 30 billion yen.

But Japanese media reports said Wednesday that Panasonic was expected to suffer its first net loss in six years.

The Nikkei, Japan's leading business newspaper, said the loss could amount to 100 billion yen because of rising restructuring costs, a strong yen and declines in the prices of its products.

As a result, Panasonic on Wednesday announced further restructuring, including the closure of two factories in Malaysia and one in the Philippines.

Unlike most other Japanese companies, whose fiscal years end March 31, Canon's business year ends December 31. (dpa)