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Will Sony ever turn it around?

Sony has issued yet another warning, following slow sales of its smartphones, now claiming that the company will not make a profit on its smartphone division for the year.

For the quarter ended June 30th, total operating profit doubled, thanks mainly to strong PlayStation sales and asset sales, but its smartphone sales forecast dropped severely, with the company now expecting to break even rather than its previous $250 million profit forecast.



"It is possible the (smartphone strategy) review might result in an impairment charge against various assets in the mobile communications segment," said new CFO Kenichiro Yoshida. "We are also discussing whether to change the number of phones in our line-up and adjust their lifecycle."

For the year, Sony says it now forecasts a 140 billion yen operating profit but a large 50 billion yen net loss ($486 million USD). For phones, the company expects to sell 43 million smartphones for the year, down from 50 million.

In better news, the company expects to be profitable for its TV division for the first time in a decade thanks to cost cutting that includes 5000 layoffs and a smaller product line.

Source:
Reuters

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 31 Jul 2014 20:16

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• 6 comments

• hearme0

  Sony has become largely irrelevant and that's sad!
  
  As for the TV division scoring a profit for the first time in a decade............this will be short-lived for them. Any company that perseveres through a decade of no profit is BOUND to eventually make a little bit of one in the course of 10 years so this news is meritless.

  1.8.2014 14:27 #1

• Bozobub

  Sony is simply reaping the "benefits" of their piss-poor customer service, lazy design, poor customer data protection, and other sehaningans. I still have bitter memories of the 55" rear-projection LCD TV I bought from them, which then warped the lamp housing and damaged the vision block due to sheer bad design. *spits* The customer-service calls were enraging.

  1.8.2014 17:53 #2

• Jemborg

  So they have a lot of phone stock to get rid of... at least cut your losses and unload them at bargain rates... hint hint.
  

  Its a lot easier being righteous than right.
  
  
  DSE VZ300-
  Zilog Z80 CPU, 32KB RAM (16K+16K cartridge), video processor 6847, 2KB video RAM, 16 colours (text mode), 5.25" FDD

  2.8.2014 08:10 #3

• brockie

  they have just made a profit for the quarter of 260m? when they expected a loss. you seem to have turned this into a downer story when it was actuary a good start to the year for Sony.

  2.8.2014 19:13 #4

• GryphB

  I'm okay with Sony taking a dump.

  2.8.2014 20:08 #5

• DVDBack23

  Originally posted by brockie: they have just made a profit for the quarter of 260m? when they expected a loss. you seem to have turned this into a downer story when it was actuary a good start to the year for Sony. There is nowhere in the story that says Sony made a profit of any kind.
  

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  4.8.2014 01:04 #6