Sony reveals $1bn loss as its smartphone business continues to struggle

Sony today announced a whopping $1.0 billion six-month loss, underlining the Japanese electronics giant’s struggle to drag itself out of the red. As the firm published its half-year earnings, bosses said the challenges of a fiercely competitive smartphone business had weighed on its bottom line. The company is also currently in the midst of a broader restructuring as it tries to move past years of massive losses.

We are on our way to achieving 400 billion yen in operating profit next year. Restructuring is progressing well and right now we think we will be able to cut 20% of staff at our distribution companies and 30% at headquarters.

Sony CFO Kenichiro Yoshida

While Japan’s electronics giants have benefited from a sharply weaker yen, analysts have warned the impact is fading, saying the industry giants have more work to do on reinventing themselves. Sony’s net loss for the six months to September came in at 109.1 billion yen ($970m), way up from a loss of 16.5 billion yen ($150m) in the same period last year. It also reported an operating loss of 15.8 billion yen ($141m), reversing a profit of 49.4 billion yen ($440m) a year earlier, although sales ticked up 6.5% to 3.71 trillion yen.

Sony’s got the will to continue with its smartphone business and it’s hoping income from the business improves. Todoki has reformed businesses before, so he’s probably thinking of rebuilding it.

Hideyuki Fukunaga, chief executive of fund manager Investrust

Business sony loss