Sony Fights for its Life: NYT

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Sony hasn’t turned a profit since 2008 and has marketed so few innovative products that it is now in a fight for its life, said The New York Times on Sunday.

Sony Corp.'s new CEO Kazuo Hirai
Sony Corp.'s new CEO Kazuo Hirai

While many Japanese companies are floundering, Sony has exhibited, “an astonishing lack of ideas,” said the story by Hiroko Tabuchi.

Sony’s market value is now only 1/9th of Samsung’s.

“It’s almost game over at Sony,” Yoshiaki Sakito, a former Sony executive  told the Times.

Sony is not alone and some of its woes, including a failure to innovate,  are hurting many Japanese consumer electronics companies.

Sony expects to lose $6.4 billion this year.  It’s facing competition from Apple and suffers from internal infighting where its many divisions fail to effectively incubate, nurture and bring to fruition new ideas.

Sony also suffers from bloated product lines.

It’s new CEO, Kazuo Hirai announced last week that Sony will focus on 3 businesses within its electronics division– mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets; cameras and camcorders; and games. 70 percent of Sony’s R&D monies will go into the 3 key categories.

But Hirai vowed Sony will not exit the TV market.

Sony is also in the entertainment and financial businesses and those sectors are “stable” for the company, said Hirai at a  meeting where he outlined turnaround plans for Sony.

For the full Times  story, see  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/technology/how-sony-fell-behind-in-the-tech-parade.html.

Sony also recently announced plans to cut  10,000 jobs.

Source: The New York Times, ABC News , Seeking Alpha

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