Sony Raises Fiscal-Year Loss Forecast to Record $6.4 Billion
The electronics and entertainment giant predicts a return to profitability in fiscal 2013.
TOKYO -- Sony has revised its forecast for annual losses to a company record ¥520 billion ($6.4 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 31, due to a $3.7 billion tax charge on its U.S. assets.
It's the company's fourth consecutive year of red ink.
Sony is making no changes to its forecasts of sales, revenue or operating income. The tax charge is being taken due to deferred tax credits in the U.S. that Sony will no longer be able to use because of continuing losses.
The electronics-to-entertainment conglomerate is forecasting a return to the black of operating income to about $2.2 billion for the year ending March 31, 2013.
On Monday, Japanese media reports claimed that Sony plans to cut 10,000 jobs from its global work force this year.
New president and CEO Kazuo Hirai, who took over from Howard Stringer on April 1, is due to explain his plan for turning Sony around to the media at Sony’s HQ on Thursday. Hirai has said his main focus will be returning the loss-making TV business to profitability. The troubled division, struggling along with other Japanese electronics makers to compete with Korean rivals LG and Samsung, has racked up losses of about $10 billion during the past eight years.
