Sony Corp, the Tokyo based electronics firm announced on Thursday that it had a loss for the latest quarter, which underscored the deep problems the company is facing. The report on earnings deflated the recent optimism that was reflected by the rally in the price of the stock.
CEO Kazuo Hirai said the measures he introduced for the restructuring of the company have started showing signs of paying off nevertheless, the quarterly loss was the company’s eight consecutive. Much of that is due to smartphones encroaching on the electronic devices market. The latest results also show how it is imperative that Sony break into the smartphone market that is currently be held in a duopoly by Apple and Samsung.
One sign that smartphones have put a crimp in the consumer electronics market is Sony has had to cut sales forecasts for the year for portable videogame consoles, camcorders, digital camera and its PCs. Other consumer electronics were not spared either as forecasts were also lowered for LCD televisions and Blu-ray players.
The Chief Financial Officer at Sony, Masaru Kato said the environment for operating in the electronics business was not optimistic.
Sony’s loss for the recently ended quarter was $115 billion, which was below the profit that was estimated at Wall Street. Sony did not change its fiscal year end projections, which it believes, will result in a profit.
The latest quarterly reporting for Sony follows that of both Panasonic and Sharp, which reported earnings that were better than expected giving hope to the Japanese electronics giants.
