Business

Friday August 3, 2012

Sony stumbles as demand wanes, slashes profit outlook


TOKYO: Sony Corp slashed its forecast for 2012/13 operating profit and lowered its sales expectations for key products including its handheld PSP and PS Vita devices as new boss Kazuo Hirai battles to revive the fortunes of the electronics giant.

Sony reported yesterday that operating profit for AprilJune fell a much steeper-than-expected 77% to 6.28 billion yen (US$80mil) compared with a year earlier. Analysts had pencilled in a 36% fall in profit.

In a further sign of its struggle to appeal to consumers in the face of competition from the likes of Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Microsoft Corp, Sony cut some projections for product sales for the year to March 2013.

It expects to shift 15.5 million TVs, down from a May projection of 17.5 million. Sony expects handheld device sales of 12 million, instead of 16 million, although it maintained a forecast for 16 million sales of the PlayStation games console.

Citing exchange rate moves and a weak global economy, Sony cut its forecast for operating profit in 2012/13 to 130 billion yen from a previous forecast of 180 billion yen.

That moved the company more into line with market thinking. The consensus forecast of 18 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters is for annual operating profit of 139 billion yen.

In the year ended March 31 this year, the company had posted an operating loss of 67 billion yen and a record net loss of 455 billion yen. Its June quarter net loss was 24.64 billion yen. - Reuters

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