Sony Sales Grow while Income Drops

May 18, 2007 – Sony this week reported that while its yearly sales grew by more than 10 percent, its net losses totaled more than 68 percent. The company's overall yearly sales, also called operating revenue, increased 10 percent from last year, according to Sony’s consolidated financial results. Sales totaled 8.29 trillion yen ($68.6 billion USD), up from 7.51 trillion yen ($62.2 billion) year-over-year.

Sony attributed the sales performance to the Bravia LCD televisions, VAIO computers, and its Cyber-shot digital camera line, in addition to its Pictures department, responsible for films such as Casino Royale and The Da Vinci Code.

However, Sony reported it faced a widening loss of 226.4 billion yen ($1.87 billion), compared to 71.8 billion yen ($593 million) last year. The Japanese manufacturer was hit hard by the recall of 9.6 million Sony-manufactured Li-ion laptop batteries, which affected Dell, Apple, and Lenovo notebooks. The battery recall cost the company 51.2 billion yen ($423 million).

Also proving problematic was the delay of the Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console, which was priced lower than product cost during the introductory period, according to the report.

Sony forecasts that the television and semiconductor business sector will increase sales in the next year and anticipates PS3 expansion in Japan, Europe, and the U.S.