Japanese high-tech giant Panasonic Corp. announced Monday a big first-quarter loss, blaming weak sales of televisions, digital cameras and other electronic goods during the recession. Panasonic posted a net loss of 52.98 billion yen (560 million US dollars) for the April-June quarter, swinging from a year-earlier profit of 73.03 billion yen. Revenue slumped 25.9 percent to 1.60 trillion yen. It logged an operating loss of 20.18 billion yen, against a profit of 109.57 billion yen in the same period of 2008, "due mainly to the effect of a sharp sales decrease and price decline," the Osaka-based company said in a statement. Panasonic, which is buying its struggling smaller rival Sanyo, left unchanged its forecast for a loss of 195 billion yen in the full business year to March 2010, warning that price competition was likely to intensify further.