Panasonic forecasts record $10.24B annual loss for FY2011, $2.59B from Q3

Panasonic is the latest Japanese TV manufacturer to feel the squeeze, and how — it’s just updated its annual forecast to predict a loss of ¥780 billion ($10.24 billion), by far the largest in the company’s history and coming close to the record ¥787.34 billion ($10.33 billion) loss Hitachi posted in the fiscal year ended March 2009. Like most other Japanese companies, Panasonic is blaming the strong yen and Thai flooding, although it also wrote off ¥250 billion ($3.28 billion) for the buyout of Sanyo in April. Its quarterly net loss was ¥197.6 billion ($2.59 billion), against average analyst predictions of just ¥3 billion ($39.37 million). Sony’s disappointing results from yesterday suddenly look a little less disastrous, with Panasonic expecting to lose well over three times as much come the end of the fiscal year.