{"id":30307,"date":"2014-11-01T19:48:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-01T11:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=30307"},"modified":"2014-11-01T16:47:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-01T08:47:35","slug":"sony-says-quarterly-loss-balloons-to-1-2-billion-on-smartphone-woes-sticks-to-forecasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/11\/01\/sony-says-quarterly-loss-balloons-to-1-2-billion-on-smartphone-woes-sticks-to-forecasts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony says quarterly loss balloons to $1.2 billion on smartphone woes, sticks to forecasts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A Sony Xperia S running Android 2.3. John Karakatsanis<\/a> \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TOKYO\u2014Sony\u2019s losses ballooned to 136 billion yen ($1.2 billion) last quarter as the Japanese electronics and\u00a0entertainment\u00a0company\u2019s troubled mobile phone division reported huge red ink.<\/p>\n

The Tokyo-based maker of the PlayStation 4 video game machines, Spider-Man movies and Xperia smartphones had reported a 19.6 billion yen loss for the same July-September period a year earlier.<\/p>\n

The poor result released Friday was despite a 7 per cent increase in quarterly sales to 1.9 trillion yen ($17.3 billion) as performance improved in cameras, TVs and game businesses.<\/p>\n

Last month, Sony wrote down the value of its mobile phone business by 176 billion ($1.6 billion). The mobile communications unit recorded a 172 billion yen ($1.6) operating loss for the quarter.<\/p>\n

Sony stuck to its forecast for the year through March 2015 of a 230 billion yen ($2.1 billion) loss.<\/p>\n

Sony has lost money in six of the seven past years, struggling amid intense competition from Apple Inc. of the U.S., Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea and a host of other cheaper Asian rivals.<\/p>\n

It has repeatedly promised turnarounds but failed to deliver, partly because even if one part of its sprawling business empire recovers, another area usually falters.<\/p>\n

Under an overhaul announced earlier this year, Sony sold its Vaio computer business and is splitting off its TV division to run as a wholly-owned subsidiary. Sony\u2019s TV division has lost money for 10 years straight.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a stunning reversal of fortune for the inventors of the 1979 Walkman portable player, which once symbolized the power of Japanese industry to innovate.<\/p>\n

In Sony\u2019s movie business, its lower theatrical revenue for the quarter was partially offset by higher home\u00a0entertainment\u00a0and TV licensing income, such as the home\u00a0entertainment\u00a0release of \u201cThe Amazing Spider-Man 2.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its music business, bestsellers were Barbra Streisand\u2019s \u201cPartners\u201d and Chris Brown\u2019s \u201cX.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sony had a profitable fiscal first quarter, but that had been from the sales of its Tokyo property and its stake in a Tokyo game maker.<\/p>\n

The challenge for Sony is to bring consumers back to its products and really put in practice the long promised synergy between its\u00a0entertainment\u00a0know-how and electronics gadgetry, or developing a win-win situation taking advantage of having both under its wing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO\u2014Sony\u2019s losses ballooned to 136 billion yen ($1.2 billion) last quarter as the Japanese electronics and\u00a0entertainment\u00a0company\u2019s troubled mobile phone division …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":30308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","mauthors-yuri-kageyama","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}