Panasonic battery unit posts 3.5% drop in Q3 operating profit; group forecast cut

Adds quarterly loss milestone, details from briefing in paragraphs 6 and 10

TOKYO, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Panasonic Holdings 6752.T said on Wednesday third-quarter operating profit for its energy unit, which makes batteries for Tesla TSLA.O, fell 3.5% from a year earlier due to a weaker performance in North America.

In addition, the company cut its full-year operating profit outlook and posted a loss for the quarter.

The energy segment posted a third-quarter operating income of 40.5 billion yen ($259.15 million), as a cooling North American electric-vehicle market outweighed stronger demand for energy storage systems used in data centres.

The company maintained its full-year operating profit forecast for the energy unit at 111 billion yen.

For the whole company, Panasonic cut its full-year operating profit forecast by 9.4% to 290 billion yen from 320 billion yen, citing restructuring costs.

It booked a 7.2-billion-yen operating loss in October-December, its first quarterly loss in almost a decade, largely due to the restructuring expenses and a write-down linked to a planned divestment of Spanish automotive parts unit Ficosa.

BATTERY MAKER ADAPTS TO COOLING EV DEMAND

Panasonic has pursued growth in North America by producing electric vehicle batteries at two U.S. plants, one in Nevada and another in Kansas, which opened in July last year.

The company now expects automotive battery sales volume of 39 gigawatt hours (GWh) for the plants for the financial year that ends in March, down 1 GWh from its previous outlook, citing a greater-than-expected slowdown in the North American EV market.

It is considering converting part of the Kansas plant's production to supply batteries for data centre applications, it said.

Panasonic expects the North American EV market to recover gradually after bottoming out last quarter. It said it plans to build a second data centre battery module plant in Mexico.

The company competes with other Asian battery makers such as China's CATL 300750.SZ and South Korea's LG Energy Solution 373220.KS, which said last week that robust demand for energy-storage system batteries helped offset the impact of slowing EV sales in its latest quarter.

($1 = 156.2800 yen)

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Thomas Derpinghaus)

((daniel.leussink@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @danielleussink;))