Sony: Record Loss, Cuts Coming
Consumer electronics giant Sony today announced that it would report a record loss of almost $3 billion, as the company said it was slammed by the economic downturn. This is the first net loss for the company in 14 years. As part of a cost cutting plan, Sony CEO Howard Stringer said the company would cut 8,000 jobs from its 185,000 global workforce. Much of the operating loss came from Sony’s TV business, and the company plans to shutter one of its two domestic TV plants.
Sony is looking at an operating loss of 260 billion yen (roughly $2.9 billion) for this business year, which is a far cry from the 475.3 billion yen profit the company enjoyed last year. Sony’s latest estimate is 60 billion yen lower than what it anticipated.
Unfortunately for Sony, 2009 isn’t projected to be any better. In December, DisplaySearch predicted that this year LCD TV revenues would fall year-on-year for the first time since they were introduced in 2000 and that 2009 would be the toughest year yet for the TV industry and supply chain.
It’s too bad that in a year where the television set is going through dramatic changes — like connecting directly to the Internet for video, incorporating remote-less gesture controls, and implementing widgets to augment and socialize the TV viewing experience – no one will be able to afford them.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
As long as Sony embrace Web Tv in it’s entirety, by moving there catalouge of content to the web, then they should be fine, this is a transition for the whole entertainment industry, which should see more consilidations going into 2009.
As for the widget gesture controls, I believe this is just a gimmik, what’s needed is a hybrid multimedia computer, Sony has this in the VAIO VGC-RT1SU, only this hardware needs to allow the TV to port to the computer seemlessly with a all-in-one HD monitor as standard,
A wireless keyboard with infa red will deal with the remote-control issue, this way you only need one TV.
A laptop could deal with the wireless surfing.
Well if you already have a TV it’s easy and affordable to connect it to the Internet. Why wait?
PCTVCables.com
Because you then have 2 hardware devices, a TV and a computer, why not just a computer?
busco el disco del grupo K-LIEN-T
si alguien lo tiene o sabe algo por fa conectarse con migo grax
busco el nuevo disco de K-LIEN-T
su alguien lo tiene por fa conevtarse conmigo grax
As a former Sony person, I’m sorry to see / hear about the less-than-enviable financial status of the company. Clearly, this is a passing phase which we will all be glad to see the end of – in the interim, this is probably as good a time as any to revisit some of the highlights of Sony Design :
http://thinkmoreinc.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/81/