Panasonic Australia management must be must be feeling pretty good right now after outperforming their parent, who last night reported losses of over A$1.3 billion dollars for the past six months.

This will bring Panasonic losses for the past 12 months to US$2.6 Billion.

In Australia, Panasonic is profitable with the company last week snaring over 48% of the plasma TV market. They are also growing their share of the digital camera market at the expense of both Sony and Samsung.

Like Sony, Panasonic has embarked on a massive restructuring program which involves the shutting down of 40 manufacturing sites and shedding 15,000 jobs to counter the headwind and better compete with rivals such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.

Panasonic, which vies with Sony for the title of the world’s largest consumer electronics maker, kept its net loss forecast of 195 billion yen ($2.06 billion) for the year to March.

Panasonic said that demand is recovering following the implementation of economic stimulus packages by governments worldwide, while reductions in fixed costs are helping to boost profit, Panasonic said. The company cited continued economic uncertainty for leaving its annual targets unchanged.

Bloomberg reported “There are still uncertainties for the second half, in the device market and the European economy,” Makoto Uenoyama, director in charge of finance, said at a briefing in Tokyo. “After seeing what happened last year, we won’t be able to tell what the full-year forecast is until around October.”

First-quarter sales fell 26 percent to 1.6 trillion yen. The operating loss was 20.2 billion yen, compared to a profit of 109.6 billion yen a year earlier. Analysts estimated a 55 billion yen loss.