Oh yeah, you remember Sony? Their music division is the second largest of the “big four,” and back during the 90s, they were basically the chosen company if you wanted to purchase entertainment hardware backed by a well-known, reputable brand. How the mighty have fallen — well, to some degree. According to the Associated Press, and reiterated by Billboard, Sony Corporation has announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs, or about 6% of its global workforce, in order to restructure its “money-losing TV business over the next two years.” The company recently doubled its projected annual net loss in revenue to $6.4 billion — its worse loss ever, and the fourth straight year of “red ink.”
To be sure, Sony still has an appreciable reputation in the television business, but competitors like Samsung and Panasonic appear to have overtaken it in the hierarchy of go-to brands among consumers. As Sony’s new CEO and president Kazuo Hirai remarked to apparently hundreds of journalists, “As CEO, I take this very seriously. But at the same time, it strengthened my resolve to transform Sony. […] Employees too want to restore Sony to its former glory and go beyond.” Their television business has lost money for eight straight years, and Hirai intends to make things profitable again by the fiscal year through March 2014. And if he doesn’t, well… I’ve always thought that a genuine Panaphonics was superior anyway, with Magnetbox being right behind.
• Sony Corporation: http://www.sony.net