Minebea Co. (Tokyo, Japan) has warned that its next six months, through fiscal-year-end 2002, will be down sharply from earlier projections.

Minebea is the world's largest manufacturer of miniature ball bearings and a key supplier of bearings for computer disk drives. The company's miniature ball bearing market share worldwide is approximately 20% overall - up to 65% for bearings under 22mm OD.

Plants in Thailand are receiving heavy investments from Minebea, ramping up the manufacture of next-generation fluid bearings for computer disk drives.

The company now projects fiscal year sales will hit only ¥260 billion, off from the original forecast of ¥300 billion. On those sales, Minebea is now projecting net profit of ¥5.5 billion. Over the first six months, the company had net earnings of ¥4.5 billion, leaving only ¥1 billion expected over the next six months.

In the accompanying statement, the company said, "We cannot expect demand recovery in the latter half of the current fiscal year. It's extremely difficult for us to forecast when global information technology related demand will recover. Poor conditions may continue longer than we originally expected.