Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Electric Corp., a Japanese maker of consumer electronics and factory machinery, reported a second-quarter loss from a profit a year earlier, citing a decline in capital spending by car and display makers.

The net loss was 17.6 billion yen ($193 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with profit of 24.2 billion yen a year earlier, Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric said in a statement today. That exceeded a 16.8 billion yen deficit forecast by Haruo Sato, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co.

Mitsubishi Electric pared gains of as much as 4.8 percent in Tokyo trading after the company cut its full-year sales forecast 3.8 percent to 3.3 trillion yen. The company kept the outlook for its first annual loss in seven years, as plummeting demand for gear used to make flat-panel displays and automobiles wipes out profit at the industrial-automation business, which accounts for a third of the company’s income.

Second-quarter operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, slumped 87 percent to 8.33 billion yen as revenue fell 19 percent to 830 billion yen, the company said. Sato expected 2.63 billion yen operating income on 900.5 billion yen in sales.

Revenue at the factory-automation equipment division, including machines that help build cars and displays, fell 30 percent to 176.8 billion yen in the quarter, the company said. The business reported a loss of 469 million yen, compared with a 23.4 billion yen profit a year earlier.

Mitsubishi Electric added 0.3 percent to 706 yen as of 1:40 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, after rising as much as 4.8 percent. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 1.4 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 30, 2009 00:44 EDT