The year that ended on March 31 was a very painful one for the company

May 1, 2014 09:30 GMT  ·  By

Sony has been doing rather poorly, financially-wise. It's still been making operating profit, but every year it's been lower, despite the company's nearly desperate attempts to return to profitability.

Sony has been selling key assets over the past two years, but weak demand from DVD and CD-ROM units, as well as losses in the TV division, have more than offset the gains achieved that way.

According to Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai, the company hopes to be “reborn” through a tri-layer strategy involving the mobile, imaging and gaming fields.

To pull that off, though, it has to spin off the TV division, sell the Vaio PS business, and at least reduce the dependency on PCs as a whole.

None of this has been done yet, which is why there was nothing to stave off the increase to the projected net loss (from $1.07 billion / €774 million to $1.2 billion / €917 million).

By extension, operating profit for the year that ended on March 31 should end up at 30% of the original estimate. That means $253 / €182 million instead of $782 / €563 million.

Given the backing that Sony has from the Japanese government, it's unlikely that the corporation will bankrupt. However, after seeing Kodak, of all companies, crash and burn, I've decided not to write out any possibilities, however bleak.