Sony losses triple to US$1.26bn as it makes painful exit from PC business

14 May 2014

Sony's PlayStation 4

Despite the roaring success of its PlayStation 4 launch, Japanese tech giant Sony saw its losses for the year triple to US$1.26bn as it began its painful exit from the PC business and saw losses in its Bravia TV and Walkman businesses.

The company also forecast a 50bn yen net loss for the current financial year as its TV business continued lose money.

Revenue increased 14.3pc to 7.76trn yen (US$75.4bn) for the year.

Earlier this month, Sony warned it would be reporting a bigger loss than earlier forecast because it was selling its Vaio PC business. The company said losses related to its PC business came to US$566m.

Sony’s Mobile Products & Communications business saw sales increase 29.6pc year-on-year to US$15.8bn.

The company saw a victory of sorts in the performance of its PlayStation 4 business, which saw 7m consoles sold since its launch in November, compared with 5m Xbox devices sold by rival Microsoft. Microsoft has since vowed to sell its Kinect wireless sensor separately, bringing the price of its console to US$399 to better compete with Sony.

Sales in the Game division of Sony increased 38.5pc to US$9.5bn.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com