TOKYO: Japan’s NEC saidit fell into the red in the nine months to December, mainly because of restructuring costs and a drop in sales after it left the smartphone business.

The company suffered a net loss of 15.09 billion yen ($147 million) over the nine months, a reversal of the 11.46 billion yen profit in the same period a year earlier.

The figures came after it logged 14.24 billion yen in extraordinary losses as the one-time powerhouse in the mobile sector exited the smartphone business.

Its sales slipped 4.0 percent from the previous year to 2.08 trillion yen, with operating profit diving 66.9 percent to 23.74 billion yen.

NEC had merged its mobile phone handset operations with those of Casio Computer and Hitachi to fight off rising competition.

But the subsidiary struggled to succeed in a market increasingly dominated by Apple and South Korean giant Samsung. It left its earnings outlook unchanged for the full year to March 2014.

It expects net profit to fall 34.3 percent from the previous year to 20 billion yen, operating profit to drop 12.8 percent to 100 billion yen and sales to slip 2.3 percent to 3.0 trillion yen.