Here's the good news: Sony's ¥98.9b ($1.03b) loss is slightly less than the $1.1b the
company told us it would lose in January. Sadly, all of the other news is bad, starting with the fact that the company just lost a freaking billion dollars, its first loss in 14 years, and it's predicting a similar $1.1b loss next year. Electronics sales were down 17 percent, the Sony-Ericsson phone partnership is
struggling, and game division sales dropped 18 percent primarily due to Sony's continued reliance on falling PS2 sales. As for the PS3, it's actually a dim bright spot: hardware cost reductions and increased game sales slightly stemmed the tide, but Sony's still expecting the division to lose money in the coming year. Sony also says it has "extensive measures" in store to try and turn things around after that, so we're hoping Sir Howard's plans to
embrace open formats and listen to consumers are kicking into gear, but we'll see.
Read - Sony financials [Warning: PDF]
Read - Reuters report
Read - MarketWatch
posted May 14th 2009 11:23AM
i'm sure Intel will gladly welcome them to the minus 1 billion club!
If they wanna stay in the game they need to get out of their ridiculous proprietary model. Besides their high prices, it's the proprietary nature of their products that keeps me away from buying Sony. I can sometimes get over the price due to design and quality, but there's no getting over being stuck to their own accessories..memory cards etc. That's just how I feel about it.
Seconded.
someone said Apple overcharges. Bullshit! Yeah, you can get some cheap ass ram someplace else, go, but their computers are amazing. They cost more cause you young, out of the loop tech heads don't realize Apple doesn't use Microsoft's OS.They have their own! It cost a lot of cash to maintain and upgrade an OS. Moreover, they make most of their own hardware and that cost lots of cash too.
Your Dell, HP etc is an off the shelf cheap ass pc that anybody can aquire. Just contact your overseas ODM, get a license from MS and the way you go.
So all you have left to do is market that shit. Easy huh.
Thanks for the laugh. Really good.
I think the biggest cause for this loss is the rise of the yen.
Since Q3 '08 the Yen has gained something like 20% against the $.
Sony Corp. is quoted on the Japanese market and its shareholders expect profits in Yens.
A TV set sold 1000$ in US earns 20% less for Sony in 2009 than in 2008.
Which is why Sony and other Japanese based companies have been publicly complaining of the fall of the dollar (oops, I mean the rise of the Yen).
Their only belief is that Japan should purposely devalue the Yen for their (a few corporations) own good. Fail.
Man this skit is all so true and fitting to this article!
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/sony_releases_new_stupid_piece_of
I fricken' love that, I think it should be mandatory to post that whenever there is a story about Sony, lol.
Lower price = more sales. Just saying.
It's only worth it if the increase in sales is great enough to offset the price difference.
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
Well if he is Captain Obvious for pointing out your flaw, are you Major Idiot for saying it in the first place?
Sony dont die! I'm about to go and buy a vaio Z!!!! noooo!!!! i wont my uber laptop!
1. Purchase companies to become part of all industries.
3. Rootkit consumers.
3. Start charging excessively high prices for normal items.
4. Use every other dirty trick in the book on consumers.
5. ...
6. (Profit)!!!
Clever, but I very much disagree with #3. Pay no mind to him Sony, and continue selling me cutting edge tech at half of production cost.
The rootkit fiasco was a dick move for sure, but I bet that was more BMG's doing. BMG has always been a dick company after all.
I bet a lot of this was the price they had to pay for Blu-ray to win the format war.
what format war?
my porn still comes on a dvd doesnt it?
But does it still come on HD DVD?
This makes me so happy. I hope they disregard what their CEO says about open formats, cling to their crappy proprietary standards and bank it all in a series of desperate and ridiculous last pitch initiatives that ends up breaking them.
A man can dream.
They totally deserve it. I have a VGN SZ71E laptop and for some reason the DVD player blew up. I wrote to Sony UK's customer service a zilion times because they wouldn't send me the replacement piece - and the laptop's still on sale in most shops.
I was quite a fanboy, still am to a certain extent, because their stuff is quality, but I'm pretty fed up with their attitude and non existent service.
I thought sony's quality had dropped over the years.
Well if you are rich what do you care about warranties and repair agreements. Go buy three more and support the economy.
According to google 1 billion Yen = 10.4 million dollars. The chart clearly states Yen but the poster seems to not be aware of this.
"Sadly, all of the other news is bad, starting with the fact that the company just lost ******>>>a freaking billion dollars
Don't know what chart you're looking at, but I clearly see the part where it's dipped to around -100 Billion yen.
approx 1.03 Billion dollars
Sony's next step is obvious. Transform into an international hot dog vendor.