Sony profit slumps on weak electronics and games

July 24, 2003

GristyMcFisty used our news submit to tell us
that consumer electronics giant Sony has seen a 98% decrease in profits in
the last quarter. Reason for this are the slump in sales for televisions,
Playstation 2 consoles, and the lack of block buster movies. Also falling sales
of Vaio PCs and Sony hifi sets are reason for the decrease in profits.

From April to May and May to June, our sales performance improved
every month during the quarter." Sony is scrambling to rebuild
its reputation after last year's shock fourth-quarter loss, which prompted
the company to unveil 300 billion yen ($2.5 billion) in streamlining over
three years to revamp its electronics business and improve profitability.

Sony said group net profit totaled
1.12 billion yen ($9.43 million), or 1.24 yen per share, for the April to
June period versus last year's first-quarter profit of 57.18 billion yen.
That came below analysts' expectations for a 6.2 billion yen net
profit, but investors said they did not expect the market to take the
numbers too badly.

"These figures aren't good, but
that was expected," said Tetsuya Ishijima, senior investment strategist at
Okasan Securities. "I don't think we'll see the big shock and share price
collapse we saw in April." Revenues fell 6.9 percent to 1.60
trillion yen.

Reason for the slump is probably the heavy competition of
South Korean and Taiwanese companies, who are able to bring good quality
products for a low price on the market. Read the entire story at Reuters.com

Source: Reuters.com