rthquake in 32 years sent the nation into mourning, discouraging purchases. Sony's camera sales are running 20 percent below estimates and it has scaled back projections for Bravia TVs, Haruyasu Nagata, the Tokyo-based company's China president, said three weeks after the earthquake that killed more than 69,000 people.
"This kind of mixed feeling is creating difficulties for us to do business in June and July," Nagata said in an interview in Shanghai on June 3.
China declared three days of national mourning in the wake of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province. The May 12 temblor, the most powerful in 58 years, toppled 1.5 million houses, buried entire villages and displaced more than 15 million people.
"Chinese people are going through a soul-searching period after the earthquake and that may have a cooling effect," said Andy Xie, founder of Rosetta Stone Advisors in Shanghai and formerly Morgan Stanley's chief Asia economist in Hong Kong.
Osaka-based Sharp Corp., Japan's biggest maker of liquid- crystal displays, also said it expects sales to be affected. "The entire nation is now in a mourning mood," said Miyuki Nakayama, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for the company.
China's electronics sales may have fallen 10 percent in May from April because of the quake's impact on consumer spending, said Kevin Wang, a Shanghai-based analyst at researcher iSuppli Corp. Retail sales in the world's fastest-growing major economy probably slowed last month after surging the most since 1999 in April, based on economists' estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Sony rose 1.1 percent to 5,480 yen at the end of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Friday, while Sharp fell 1.9 percent to 1,778 yen. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 1 percent.
Sony, which forecasts China to overtake Japan as its second-biggest electronics market this fiscal year, is delaying promotional offers for liquid-crystal display TVs as charities across China raise money for earthquake survivors and reconstruction, Nagata said. He declined to comment on how long the quake may affect consumer spending.
Best Buy Co., the biggest U.S. electronics chain, postponed plans to bring Japanese all-girl band Morning Musume to China for a concert to June from May, said Phil Zhang, a Shanghai-based spokesman for the retailer.
