BEIJING, July 30 -- Japanese electronics maker Toshiba swung to a quarterly operating loss as a rapid fall in chip prices dented sales, but it kept its annual outlook above market expectations.

    Toshiba, the world's No. 2 maker of NAND flash memory chips behind South Korea's Samsung Electronics, is battling chronic price falls that have taken its share price down 29 percent since a peak in early June.

    Prices of NAND, used in digital music players, cameras and mobile phones, have fallen while slumping system chip operations purchased from Sony Corp are also hurting profitability at Toshiba.

    For April-June, Toshiba, which also makes notebook PCs, nuclear reactors and LCD TVs, said it slipped to an operating loss of 24.18 billion yen (225 million U.S. dollars) against an operating profit of 21.18 billion yen in the same period the previous year.

    (Source: China Daily/Agencies)