TOKYO—Hoya Corp. reported a drop in profits for both the second quarter and first half of its 2012 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2011.

During the quarter, Hoya’s revenues from continuing operations increased 0.7 percent to 96,505 million yen, however, profit for the term declined 11.1 percent to 13,030 million yen year on year. Profit from all operations for the quarter was down 10.6 percent to 12,569 million yen, due mainly to a decline in product prices and the appreciation of the yen, the company said.

In its Life Care unit, Hoya reported that shipments of eyeglass lenses increased from a year earlier and, in particular, rose in Europe, which is the company’s largest market. However, sales decreased year on year except in the Asia/Oceania region due partly to the appreciation of the yen. Sales of contact lenses rose year on year with an increase in the number of customers visiting stores, reflecting active consulting sales through directly owned stores, high sales of high value-added products and an increase in the number of stores undertaking aggressive expansion initiatives.

Sales of intraocular lenses rose from the previous year, due to brisk sales of soft lenses. As a result, sales in the Life Care segment stood at 52,398 million yen, up 3.4 percent year on year, and segment income (profit before tax) amounted to 10,997 million yen, up 11.9 percent year on year.

For the first six months ended Sept. 30, 2011, revenues from Hoya’s continuing operations slipped 0.2 percent to 189,669 million yen year on year, and profit for the term was down 1.3 percent to 27,172 million yen. Profit from all operations was down 26.1 percent to 27,929 million yen. Hoya attributed the decreases to the sale of its hard disk glass media manufacturing operations in the first quarter of the previous year. The company posted a 10,343 million yen gain as the revenue of discontinued operations.

"The interim financial results are in line with our forecast except the impact of yen appreciation which was larger than we expected,” said Hiroshi Suzuki, chief executive officer of Hoya, “It is too early to estimate actual damage caused by the flood in Thailand, however, we put all our effort for the earliest possible recovery of the plants and trust of our customers.”