Sony Hemorrhaging Money in 2011

The Tokyo company is posting losses for the fourth year in a row.

Sony announced its recent financial information and it doesn't look good. For the fourth year in a row Sony is in the red, and the company will post an annual loss of 2.9 billion dollars in March for 2011. Reuters is reporting that the loss is worse than expected.

2011 saw the company combat slow sales, the strong yen, and the year's devastating earthquake in Japan and flooding in Thailand. Kaz Hirai was recently named the company's new CEO.

"It won't be easy for Sony to regain its lost ground under new leadership, as its overall competitiveness has sharply weakened," Kim Young-Chan, analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp in Seoul, told Reuters.

"It's got structural problems that will take years to fix. It's not just Sony, but Japanese IT firms have similar problems. They are failing to innovate and produce industry-leading products in almost every major area from TVs to displays, tablets and smartphones."

#Sony #Financial report #Kaz hirai #2011

Angelo Grant Staff Writer

02/02/2012 at 12:11 PM

2.9 billion?! That's not good...

"It's not just Sony but Japanese IT firms have similar problems. They are failing to innovate and produce industry-leading products in almost every major area from TVs to displays, tablets and smartphones."

I have to say, from a hardware standpoint Samsung (based in Korea) has been the real innovator as of late. Sony hasn't really done anything impressive since they created BluRay, and I honestly think they were lucky to overtake HD DVD they way they did. That's my opinion of course.

Mongoose

02/03/2012 at 01:32 AM

IIRC, it was the majority of the movie studios who decided to back bluray, ensuring a short format wars, which is good, since the consumer would wind up the real loser. Imagine those people who have HD-DVDs....

Even that victory is blunted due to the fact the rise of digital distribution, Nextflix, etc.

Sony has to pick it up somewhere, maybe that's why they put Kaz at the helm. I remember Sony being the name in portable music. In the 80s, it was the Walkman. Like Kleenex, even if you didn't have Sony brand, that portable cassette player was called a Walkman. In the 90s it was the Discman. I remember back in high school, you had a Discman, you were pimp. Anti Skip FTW.

But with the 00s, they missed the boat with digital music. While the Rio music players were the first MP3 players on the market, it was a resurging Apple with the one two combination of the iPod and iTunes that got the lions share in a few years. I'm sure Sony is still kicking themselves with that one.

Kathrine Theidy Staff Alumnus

02/03/2012 at 06:48 PM

Personally, I see this as Sony getting what's coming to them. Their products have always been shody and undeserving of success.

PixlBit