Sony Says It Has Turnaround Plan But Admits $6.4B Annual Loss

Giant electronics manufacturer Sony admitted Wednesday that it lost $6.4 billion in 2011, double its earlier forecast, and the Japanese company’s fourth consecutive year of losses.

In a report from Tokyo, BBC News said new Sony chief executive Kazuo Hirai declared that the company is readying a turnaround plan, even as he admits that the company stands to suffer another loss for the opening quarter of the current year worth $1.2B.

Hirai said details of the rescue plan for the beleaguered electronics giant will release tomorrow, but made it clear in today’s announcement that Sony is quickly making an exit from unprofitable businesses as a priority step.

He said part of the company’s losses from the previous year’s operations might have been due to tax charges in its US business.

BBC noted that Sony’s intractable losses—four years running—have been a result of the company’s disastrous television manufacturing operations, which have suffered eight years of losses in a row.

It is still unknown how the announced turnaround for the company would pull through with its new CEO, particularly details on returning profitability to the firm’s troubled television division.

Observers further pointed out that Sony’s content and device divisions have not been able to compete in today’s hot technology development environment, citing Apple’s success in upending Sony’s iconic Walkman portable music player with the phenomenal iPod.

In the television market, Sony faces unrelenting competition from South Korea’s Samsung, which had trounced the Tokyo firm by marketing television technology equal or better than Sony’s—at a lower price.

Adding injury upon injury, the Sony executive disclosed that the company will start cutting down on its workforce, some 10,000 jobs this year.

Source: BBC

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