Sony shares dip on losses forecast
Shares in Sony fell by seven per cent.
The share price of Sony dropped heavily on the back of its latest financial results, which include a forecast that the company is going to make a loss for the current fiscal year.
Sony admitted that it will be 2015 until the company is able to return to profitability, with investors responding negatively to the news. Stocks fell by seven per cent after the announcement was made by the Japanese electronics firm before ending the day 6.46 per cent lower.
Due to the weak results, Sony executives confirmed they will not be taking their bonuses for this year, but this was not enough to convince investors that the company has a bright future.
Towards the end of last year, Sony released its latest games console the PlayStation 4, but many industry commentators have suggested sales of the next-generation machine have not been as high as expected.
In a statement, Sony reported a loss of 125 billion yen (£732 million) for the year to March and the company confirmed it is likely to make a loss of 50 billion yen for the current fiscal year and this would be the sixth year in the last seven that the company has failed to turn a profit.
Restructuring
Chief financial officer at Sony Kenichiro Yoshida stated that in response to the weak financial situation of the company, the firm is going to continue to move out of the markets in which it is not performing well enough, which includes the television sector.
"In previous years the restructuring was mostly within business units and in manufacturing," he said on an earnings call yesterday (May 14th). "This time the difference is that we are quitting businesses entirely.
Competition across the electronics sector over the last few years has forced Sony away from leading the market for products such as televisions, with companies such as Samsung among those to have usurped the Japanese firm.
Sony stated that one of the reasons for the high loss in the year to the end of March was the large costs of exiting its struggling PC business.
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