Sumitomo’s First-Half Profit Drops By 11%

Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp. has reported a net profit of 254 billion yen ($1.7 billion) for the six months ending in September, down 11% from the same period last year, partly due to weaker coal prices, Reuters reported.

Sumitomo has been adversely affected by the weakening yen. I Photo: Sumitomo Corp.

In the April to September period of the previous year, Sumitomo posted a net profit of 285 billion yen. The company maintained its net profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2025 at 530 billion yen.

Like other Japanese trading houses, Sumitomo has been adversely affected by the weakening yen, which has raised the cost of raw material imports but made exports more competitive, according to Reuters' Katya Golubkova.