Sony Corp said on Monday it would hold a news conference at 4:30 a.m. EDT about its revised earnings estimate for the year that ended on March 31.

CFO Masaru Kato will attend the briefing, the company said.

Sony is due to announce its full-year earnings on Thursday and its current forecast, issued before the March 11 earthquake, is for an annual operating profit of 200 billion yen ($2.4 billion).

Stock exchange rules in Tokyo require companies to notify investors if estimates for the business year are likely to be more than 30 percent higher or lower than their most recent forecast.

An analysts' consensus, according to a SmartEstimate by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, is for a slightly lower operating profit of 197 billion yen. SmartEstimates place more weight on recent estimates by highly rated analysts.

The devastating earthquake and tsunami in March damaged Sony plants in northeastern Japan, snarled the supply chain and triggered a plunge in domestic consumption.

Many rival corporations, including Panasonic Corp, have yet to issue forecasts for the current financial year to March 2012, due to uncertainty following the disaster.

($1 = 81.710 Japanese Yen)

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Michael Watson and Joseph Radford)

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