The overwhelming recession has brought Toshiba Corp's chip business on the verge the first net and operating loss in a span of seven years, after the company reported losses in the fiscal third quarter.

According to research firm iSuppli, Toshiba - the world's no. 2 NAND flash memory chip maker by revenue - has received a hit from falling prices, persisting oversupply, and weakening demand for chips used in portable music players and digital cameras.

During the period October-December, the global sales of flash memory plunged 33 percent from the previous year. As a result, the company posted a net loss of 121.14 billion yen - a drastic turnaround from its 80.51 billion yen profit a year earlier! The net loss figures were worse than the 39.6 billion yen estimated by analysts.

Hacking its earlier annual estimates of a 150 billion yen profit, the company has now warned of a 280 billion yen net loss and operating loss apiece, in the full fiscal year that ends March 31. This projection is terrible negative blow to the consensus estimate, of a 67.5 billion yen loss, before the announcement of the quarterly results.

So far as the estimated sales are concerned, the figures have now been brought down to 6.700 trillion yen, from the earlier estimates of 7.700 trillion yen. And, without doubt, the gloominess related to the global recession is mounting!