Sony Electronics will slash 10 percent of its global work force and overhaul its television division in an effort to boost profits, a report in Japan’s largest daily said last week. Sony, the report said, will announce the plans as early as tomorrow.
This comes after last week’s quarterly report that showed Sony’s net profit fell 25 percent from the period a year earlier. Income from its games division plunged and its movie studio posted a loss.
Sony also trimmed by 23 percent its full-year target for operating income, a measure that excludes taxes and one-time events and reflects the core business. The company, which is trying to overhaul its electronics division, left its net profit target unchanged.
The newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, said in order to reduce costs Sony will eliminate up to 20,000 jobs worldwide by the end of March 2006. In recent months, Sony had already started eliminating jobs in its music division and in its electronics business.
The report also said that Sony, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of television receivers, will stop making cathode ray tube displays in Japan as it promotes newer sets with liquid crystal and plasma displays. Sony produced 130 million cathode ray tube televisions worldwide last year, but fewer than 2 million liquid crystal and plasma screen sets.
Last week Sony said it was close to reaching a deal to co-produce liquid crystal displays for televisions and computers with Samsung Electronics in South Korea. To date, Sony has had to buy the panels from other companies.
For more information visit www.sony.com/professionals.
