Tokyo - The Japanese electronics firm Toshiba Corp said Wednesday that its losses in the April-to-June quarter rose to 57.8 billion yen (610 million dollars) from
11.6 billion yen in the same period last year as the global economic downturn affected consumer demand for electronics.

Operating losses in the first quarter of its fiscal year also widened to 37.59 billion yen compared with a loss of 22.88 billion yen it incurred during the same period a year before.

Sales were also down 17.2 per cent to 1.34 trillion yen.

Toshiba kept its full-year earnings forecast unchanged as consumer demand for televisions and hard-disk drives continued to be sluggish and price competition remained high.

Toshiba expected to incur a net loss of 50 billion yen for the year through March, operating profit of 100 billion yen and sales of 6.8 trillion yen. (dpa)