| thranx said:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sony-bread-butter-not-electronics-005354650.html Sony’s Bread and Butter? I"A new report from the investment banking firm Jefferies delivered a harsh assessment of Sony’s electronics business. “Electronics is its Achilles’ heel and, in our view, it is worth zero,” wrote Atul Goyal, consumer technology analyst for Jefferies, in the report, released this week. t’s Not Electronics
“In our view, it needs to exit most electronics markets.”"
" Its financial arm accounts for 63 percent of Sony’s total operating profit last year. Life insurance has been its biggest moneymaker over the last decade, earning the company 933 billion yen ($9.07 billion) in operating profit in the 10 years that ended in March. Sony’s film and music divisions, which produced hits like the Spider-Man movies and “Zero Dark Thirty” and recorded musicians like the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the electronic music duo Daft Punk, have contributed $7 billion to the company’s bottom line over the last decade. In that time, Sony’s electronics division has lost a cumulative $8.5 billion. Hardly Sony’s crown jewels, experts say. “The problem is that the board is still absolutely focused on fixing electronics,” said Kouji Yamada, a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and research director of Mission Value Partners, a Sonoma, Calif., investment company. Sony’s chief executive, Kazuo Hirai, said last Wednesday that its board would consider Third Point’s proposal, even as it emphasized that the discussions were preliminary and that it had not set a time for a response. But to a small band of analysts, Mr. Loeb’s prescriptions for Sony are shortsighted, merely milking the company’s profit-making content business for good money to throw after the bad. As proof of the untenable future facing Sony’s electronics, critics point to its televisions and smartphones. Competition is intense, and in cellphones Sony remains a bit player. Even where it is more successful, in digital cameras or game consoles, it is struggling to stay abreast of stronger companies."
This ran on Monday this week in the New York Times |
Sony is not struggling in the camera sector as it is now a top dog because of its nex series and it provides sensors to apple, samsung, and other phone companies. The Playstation division realized that they can't loose $200 per console sold (Main reason for its losses this gen) thus the ps4 will be MUCH cheaper and profitable to Sony. The xperia z has sales of over 5 million which is really good as a starting to push sony to third in mobile and if the leaked specs of the Sony Honami are true then they are becoming real strong in the mobile sector. Sony needs to give up on home tv and audio, walkman and protable audio, and Vaio as they are the driving forces for sony's profit drops.
