The bleak outlook signalled tough times ahead for Japan’s electronics giants, who have enjoyed record profits in recent years helped by strong sales of flat televisions, cameras and mobile telephones.<\/p>\n
Sony forecast a net profit of 150 billion yen for the financial year to March, down 59% from the previous year and much worse than an earlier estimate of 240 billion yen.<\/p>\n
The stronger yen was the main culprit, reducing the value of Sony’s repatriated earnings.<\/p>\n
The company said sales of televisions, compact digital cameras and camcorders were also weak "due to a deterioration in the market environment brought on by the slowing global economy and an intensification of price competition."<\/p>\n
Operating profit is now estimated at 200 billion yen, much worse than a previous forecast of 470 billion yen. Revenue is expected to edge up just 1.5% from the previous year to 9.0 trillion yen.<\/p>\n
The profit warning, Sony’s second in less than three months, followed a steep drop in earnings in the quarter to September.<\/p>\n
Sony said its net profit plunged 72% to 21 billion yen in the second quarter of the financial year, based on preliminary figures. Operating profit dived 90% to 11 billion yen.<\/p>\n
The steep fall was partly due to a slump in the Japanese stock market, which hit Sony’s financial services business. The year-earlier figure was also inflated by the sale of a portion of the site of Sony’s former headquarters.<\/p>\n
Sony has endured a difficult few years in the face of tough competition from rival products such as Apple’s iPod and Nintendo’s Wii.<\/p>\n
Last year it enjoyed a strong recovery under its first foreign boss, Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born US citizen. Under his watch, the group has shed non-core assets and axed thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n
But its earnings are now being pressured by a weak dollar, slowing global economic growth and rising costs for raw materials. The Japanese yen has soared amid recent financial turmoil as investors unwind risky bets.<\/p>\n
Troubles at the company’s joint venture Sony Ericsson have added to the woes. The Swedish-Japan mobile telephone maker plunged deep into the red in the third quarter with a net loss of €25 million euros.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sony Corp. warned Thursday its annual profits will plunge by more than half because of a surging yen, a sputtering global economy and intense price competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}