Sony has 4Q profit, but expects decline this year

• IBTimes RSS
• Print
• E-Mail
• digg
• Del.icio.us

Strong sales of flat panel TVs and digital cameras also helped nearly triple annual profit compared with the previous financial year, the electronics and entertainment company said Wednesday.

But Sony joined Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. in forecasting lower profit for the fiscal year through March 2009, citing the strong yen's erosion on overseas earnings.

Sony Corp. had been battered by a recent fall in gadget prices and the bumpy start of its PlayStation 3 game home console, which required enormous startup costs and struggled against the Wii from rival Nintendo Co.

The last time Sony had a record annual profit was a decade ago, said Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, Sony posted a profit of 29 billion yen ($277 million), a reversal from a loss of 67.6 billion yen in the same period last year.

For the financial year through March, Sony earned a better-than-expected profit of 369.4 billion yen ($3.5 billion), a record for the company known for its Walkman portable players and "Spider-Man" movies. That's nearly triple the 126 billion yen earned in the previous fiscal year.

Quarterly sales dropped 6.5 percent to 1.95 trillion yen ($18.6 billion). Sales were solid in liquid-crystal display TVs, digital cameras and Vaio computers, the Tokyo-based manufacturer said. But sales of mobile phones, old-style picture tube TVs and PlayStation 2 machines declined.

For its quarterly operating performance, which measures how a company did in its core operations, Sony lost 4.7 billion yen ($44.9 million) although that was still an improvement from a much larger operating loss of 113 billion yen in the year ago period.

For the fiscal year through March 2009, though, Sony expects profit to slide 21.5 percent to 290 billion yen ($2.8 billion as sales edge up just 1 percent to 9 trillion yen ($86 billion).

• 1
• 2