As you may know, Sony isn’t doing too hot and they’re projecting to do even worse than initial estimates. In an effort to cut down on the losses, company CEO Kaz Hirai and other Sony executives are planning on taking salary pay cuts as high as 50 percent of annual wages. The cuts will reportedly recoup around $10 million for Sony, which really isn’t much when you consider the $1.3 billion in approximate losses for this fiscal year.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Sony’s worse days may be behind it according to some investors. Sony is incurring the major costs from selling its computer business and restructuring its TV division in the most recent fiscal year, optimistically setting it up for success this upcoming fiscal year.
Kaz is expected to reveal Sony’s long term plan on May 22, with promises to rebuild the company’s electronics arm around three main pillars: games, imaging technology and mobile devices. As you may know, the gaming division is doing quite well with the PS4 currently leading the new generation of consoles in sales having sold about 7 million units through April. However, even Sony’s sales target of 20 million units of PlayStation hardware for the just-ended fiscal year is below its levels from six years ago by 45 percent.
Imaging technology has been also been somewhat successful with smartphone cameras. Sensors made by Sony are used in iPhones and a number of other smartphones for the built-in cameras. Its most recent struggle has been companies starting to turn to in-house imaging technology. For example, Samsung will be shifting to its own parts for imaging in the new Samsung Galaxy S5.
In the mobile space, Sony still needs to do some work. When Kaz took over the company as CEO in 2012, he had a goal of establishing the company as a clear No. 3 in smartphones, behind Samsung and Apple. Sony’s global smartphone market share, spearheaded by the Xperia line, rose to 4.3 percent in 2012, according to research firm IDC. However, it dipped a little last year dropping to 3.8 percent and ranking sixth in overall market share.
We’ll get fuller details about Kaz’s plans for the future in a couple of weeks, which should help gauge the path Sony will be going down.
What do you think Sony’s long term plans should entail? Let us know in the comments.
