Sony expects 2014 losses to be less than expected

Sony trims loss forecast after strong third quarter on higher sensor sales

Looks like Sony wouldn’t have to drool over its negative position for too long and things weren’t as bad as they appeared in the first place. The Japanese company has revealed that its net annual loss is going to be smaller than what had been initially predicted. This is predominantly because of the company’s efforts to shelter itself from more losses through costs cuts as well as the strong sales of its image sensors and PlayStation video game consoles. Sony’s fourth quarter had highly benefitted from these safe spots in the third quarter.

After reporting five net losses in the past six years, the company is going through some major restructuring and a major part of this has been the shrinkage of struggling smartphone and TV divisions and PC, from which we can see a total exit. Their policy for now seems to be quite straightforward; stay away from whatever’s not pumping out enough profits.

According to Sony’s Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida, the company’s restructuring efforts were all paying off well and were certainly in the right direction. In an earnings briefing he said “We said that we will carry through structural reforms, that there would be no sacred cows. It is taking time, but I think we /4/be starting to see results.”

On Wednesday, the company stated that its preliminary results showed that its operating profit had doubled to 178.3 billion yen ($1.52 billion) in the October-December quarter and the sales had increased by 6 percent and reached 2.56 trillion yen. However, this was way ahead of the expected operating profit of 96.6 billion yen, on sales of 2.38 trillion yen.

It has to be kept in mind that the third-quarter numbers are not yet the official figures because the company has yet to compile the accurate figures for its Hollywood studio after the massive hacking attack which jolted the entire company. However, Sony seems to be quite positive on the idea that the attack didn’t have any material impact on the finances.

source: sony