Sony posts record net loss of $5.74 billion

PanARMENIAN.Net - Technology train wreck Sony has posted a record net loss of $5.74 billion for last year, TechEYE reports.

The company has been hammered by losses in its TV business and its shares are valued at below $15.5 billion.

People in the know are saying that the Walkman and PlayStation maker has lost its innovative edge and is now behind rivals Apple, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics. It just appointed a new CEO, Kazuo Hirai, who is slashing costs and jobs to fix the struggling TV unit.

He is also hoping that his push to cameras, gaming and smartphones will improve life.

Sony expects an operating profit of $2.25 billion in the year to next March, compared with a consensus estimate of $2.17 billion among 18 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

In the year just ended, Sony posted an operating loss of $840,000. It forecast a full-year net profit of $1.25 million which never happened but would have been tiny anyway.

Sony expects sales of liquid crystal TVs to fall 11 percent to 17.5 million this business year, and predicted sales of its PlayStation games console would also slip 11 percent, to 16 million.

The Vita handheld games console has sold 1.8 million units this year.

Sony is cutting 10,000 jobs, which is six percent of its global workforce.