News

Sony posts quarterly loss

Sony Corporation has reported a loss of ¥105.9 billion (£877.7 million) for the three months ending December 31.

Sales revenue for the period fell by 17.7 per cent year on year, to ¥1,822.9 billion (£15.1 billion). This time last year the company posted a profit of ¥131.5 billion (£1.1 billion).

The Consumer Products And Services division, which includes Sony's PlayStation business, also posted a loss, of ¥85.7 billion (£710 million). Sales fell by almost a quarter year on year, to ¥996.5 billion (£8.3 billion).

Sony blamed the declines on the flooding disaster that struck Thailand last July. As well as causing over 815 deaths, the floods hit Thai manafacturing hard, causing a worldwide shortage of certain components. Both AMD and Nvidia blamed falling sales revenue on a shortage of hard drives in the supply chain.

The company also acknowledged the impact of the PS3 price cut, poor market conditions in Europe, and the continued appreciation of the yen.