Sony Reports $1 Billion Annual Loss

[keithlewis]

Sony Corporation has reported a 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion/£685 million) loss for the financial year ended March 31, 2009.

During the period, company sales fell 12.9 percent to 7,730 billion yen ($81 billion/£53.5).

“Sales decreased and losses were recorded due to factors including the slowdown of the global economy, the appreciation of the yen and the decline in the Japanese stock market," said the firm.

Game division sales were down 18 percent to 1053.1 billion yen ($11 billion/£7.3 billion), primarily due to “the impact of the appreciation of the yen and a decrease in unit sales of PS2.”

However, the segment’s operating losses more than halved from 124 billion yen to 58.5 billion yen ($612.4 million/£404.6 million), due largely to PS3 hardware cost reductions and increased sales of PS3 software.

10.06 million PS3 consoles were sold during the year, representing a ten percent increase. PSP sales increased from 13.81 million to 14.11 million, while PS2 sales decreased from 13.66 million units to 7.91 million.

PS3 software sales jumped by 45.8 million units to 103.7 million units. However, PSP software sales fell around ten percent to 50.3 million units, while PS2 software sales dropped from 154 million units to 83.5 million.

Sony isn't expecting a turnaround in the wider company's fortunes any time soon, as it said it expects to report a net loss of 120 billion yen ($1.25 billion/£830 million) for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/sony-re ... nnual-loss