TOKYO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — January 29, 2016 — Hoya Corporation (TOKYO: 7741) today announced financial results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2015.

During the quarter, the Group sales totaled 127,645 million yen, decreasing by 0.4% from the same period last year. Pre-tax profit for the quarter was 31,179 million yen, while profit for the quarter was 24,034 million yen, which represented decrease of 14.0% and 17.5% respectively from last year when foreign exchange gain was reported due to the decline in the value of yen against U.S. dollar progressed.

In the Information Technology segment, demand of semiconductor and LCD panel-related products especially for smartphones and TVs was favorable and drove sales expansion. On the other hand, sales of glass disks for HDDs declined slightly because of encroachments into the PC market by smartphones and other devices. Overall sales in the Information Technology segment declined 3.2%.

In the Life Care segment, the contact lens retail business reported a major increase for the quarter, however sales of the eyeglass lenses business slightly decreased due to the negative impact of the foreign currency trends. In the medical related products, sales of intraocular lens business for the cataract surgery rose substantially because of recovery in the Japanese market and success in developing sales overseas markets, while sales of medical endoscopes weakened. As a consequence, overall sales in the Life Care segment were flat.

For the nine months ended December 31, 2015, HOYA posted record revenues of 384,048 million yen, record pre-tax profit of 95,938 million yen and record profit for the term of 74,824 million yen.

“Some weak businesses in the Information Technology segment seem to have hit the bottom, and we expect that growth in the Life Care segment will drive the Group performance in the coming year,” said Hiroshi Suzuki, chief executive officer of HOYA. “There is a great potential in the medical endoscope business and we will aggressively seek the opportunity for M&A.”

Hoya also announced the projected results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016. Hoya forecasts revenues of 505,000 million yen (up 3.1% compared to the previous year), pre-tax profit of 120,000 million yen (up 1.5%) and profit for the term of 93,500 million yen (up 0.6%).