Panasonic Corporation reported a 12% drop in its second-quarter operating profit, hurt by the ongoing Sino-US trade war and its battery business with Tesla Inc staying in the red. Still, the Japanese electronics company's September-quarter earnings of 83.9 billion yen ($772.06 million) was 33% higher than analysts' average estimate polled by Refinitiv, thanks to its housing and home appliances businesses posting solid profits. A year earlier, Panasonic, the exclusive battery cell supplier for new electric vehicles (EVs) made by Tesla, had earned 95.2 billion yen. "We are quickly ramping up battery production (at the Gigafactory joint venture with Tesla), but improvements in production efficiency have been delayed," Chief Financial Officer Hirokazu Umeda said at an earnings briefing. But Umeda said the joint venture is still aiming to make start making profits at least on a monthly basis, by the end of the financial year on March 31.