“Consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. today slashed its earnings forecast for the 2008 fiscal year, saying profits will be down nearly 40 percent from a prediction the company made this summer and about 60 percent from the previous year,” Mike Musgrove reports for The Washington Post.
“In a statement released from its headquarters in Tokyo, Sony singled out sales of flat-panel televisions, digital cameras and video cameras as likely to be lower than previously expected ‘due to a deterioration in the market environment brought on by the slowing global economy.’ The company says it now expects earnings of 150 billion yen, or $1.5 billion, down from a July forecast of 240 billion yen, or $2.4 billion,” Musgrove reports.
“While Sony has often been regarded as a bellwether for the industry in the past, the company’s woes are sharper than those of some competitors. This week, for example, Apple Inc. reported brisk sales of Mac computers and iPhones. The company forecast sales in this upcoming quarter to be flat compared to its performance in the year-ago quarter,” Musgrove reports.
“Sony had been struggling long before the economy’s current troubles. Chief executive Howard Stringer took the helm in 2005 and launched a major reorganization in an attempt to restore the company’s luster as an electronics pioneer,” Musgrove reports.
Full article here.
I have a love hate relationship with Sony. As much as I hate having a drawer full of random Sony chargers, I’d like to see them flourish.
Sony products are either genius or crap and they somehow manage to cripple their genius products with crappy interfaces and/or proprietary memory and/or product specific chargers.
The iPod was the beginning of the end for Sony, who never seemed to see the MP3 movement until it was too late.
Steve will anonunce their new acquisition – SONY
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I love my PS3, the only Sony product I own.
Tomorrow… that is
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STEVE BUY SONY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!
Get it while they are hurting. YOU WILL THE BLU-RAY license and won’t ever have to worry about licensing and you could kill off the crap they’ve made and keep all the really goodones and put the apple spin on it.
Sony’s problem is that they often push proprietary things on the market. In the case of Blu-Ray, it has worked out — sort of (ask Steve Jobs about the future of that format).
But things like the mini-disc were force fed to consumers who didn’t want them. Instead of getting to work on a great MP3 player, Sony and all the other companies let Apple bust the door down.
Sony is one company I’d love to see Apple buy. The first thing Jobs would do is cut 2/3 of the shit Sony makes. But you know the 1/3 left would be refined and beautiful. Apple could push a few of its half-baked products or non-premier products out the door under that brand name. Imagine the Sony A-series of products, for example. Displays would be one area right away that Apple could make a little money in even with lower margins.
The thing is, Apple is a unique brand that can’t ship crap or have sub-30 margins. For Sony, that’s not as true. But Sony is definitely in the middle tier of brands. They don’t always make the best, but they rarely make the worst.
Steve, buy Sony!
Note to MDN:
I really would like the abillity to edit post at these forums.
Other then that… really liking your dedication to all things Apple
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No way is Apple gonna buy Sony in this mess… but wait: it could. And then it will be the no. 1 most popular laptop maker, no. 2 most popular phone manufacturer… but no. Sony makes disgusting technology (having used it a lot myself) and Apple doesn’t like that. Oh no. But they can still compete!
On another note, Sirius XM Radio is trading at 0.25. Somebody big is going to pooperscoop them up at that price. Satellite radio has some new competition, but nothing set in stone yet.
Apple could add satellite radio to the next iPod and wants to make further headway into automobiles like satellite radio already has.
Maybe DISH or DirectTV will scoop them up, as they are already in bed together with the actual satellites. Just too cheap a price to ignore and they can’t get much lower. I hope Apple is interested, as they had talks a few years ago. The next iPod needs a major upgrade area.
If apple were to buy sony, they would sell off the operations that they don’t want. Seriously apple could highly benefit from this. They would have so many options to decide what to do with each section of sony and eith make some money back or definetly lower the cost of buying them out. but it still would allow them to get their hands on products/patents(cough cough blu-ray) they plan to invest in.
xm is so low cuz they were acquired by sirius and their brand is the one being closed down.
Rattymouse@ – “and this is Mac news WHY?????”
Look at the MDN poll to your left. That´s why it´s relevant here today.
Blu-Ray is the death of Sony.
What about MS they will post profits again… No matter how screwy they do, they always make a profit. Gosh I wonder why?
I have a Sony DVD/VHS combo and it sucks.
It takes a good 60 seconds just to READ a normal DVD movie before it brings up the first menu. It only wants to work with Sony DVD-Rs.
After the root-kit arrogance+stupid, I will never buy Sony again. I tell people to avoid them.
if Sony wants to be a leader again they’ll need a new CEO. A new Japanese speaking CEO would be good.
Howard Stringer had delusions of something when he took over as Sony’s CEO but, all he’s managed to do put Sony into businesses were they had no competence and no innovation abilities. A prime example of this is Sony’s (Stringer’s) buying into failing BMG Music (at a premium price too) for which they recently finished purchasing the most of rest of BMG from the Bertelsmann Music Group (at another premium price). Another example is computers systems and laptop, while Sony gets better marks then most in their case design and style their just making cheap PCs with the same cheap PC parts that everyone else uses. Sony (Stringer) got into the cell phone business by a joint venture with Ericsson to form a handset division. Rather then letting Ericsson do it’s thing, Sony (Stringer) wanted and forced all the phones into the high-end of the market with no clear identity on why Sony-Ericsson phone were better then Motorola’s, Nokia’s or anyone’s phones. Sony-Ericsson phones have also stagnated in their design, function and usability. Sony Pictures is another one of the areas where Stringer dragged Sony were it had no business being in the first place.
Sony needed to stick to what Sony did best and where Sony generated it’s cash. Sony is fast becoming a second or even third rate company at the hands of Howard Stringer. Sony needs to divest itself of all the non core crap and focus on what made Sony a great company in the first place.
I still see no reason for adobe. yeah flash. woopy. they already have competition that fairs well buy sony. sell most it off, it’s alreay broken into several industries. If apple wants to be in the living room, buying sony would put them there a whole lot quicker than testing the waters themselves.
“MDN Magic Word” = bad
as is in bad idea to buy adobe
@@maxim
Yes, I know, and what better time to get scooped up. Satellite radio is a modern technology and is viable to someone at that price. They are pocketchange for some. HD radio is not prevalant yet and will take time.
Satellite radio could easily become mobile satellite TV. It is too good to pass up at that price. The receiving end of satellite data is incredibly fast and large bandwidth, and the iPhone could be that wide receiver.
They’ve already been in talks in the past according to Sirius CEO. Worst case…the Zunellite.
i don’t think apple will get into the satellite business. they made the GENIUS feature to compete with that and internet radio. If apple would do anything satellite radio is CONTROL THE WORLD!!! but seriously its not where they want togo. The talks with Sirius were about listeing it through 3g wifi, like pandora. not through that satellite. you would get like 10 mins of battery life.
disney buying sony would be brilliant.
Apple should spend about a Billion and purchase Avid.
It’s a bargain and the perfect fit for Apple.
Sony has too many fingers in too many pies these days and Apple would need to divest too much of Sony to absorb them into Apple.
I just love all the business experts on this site. Steve Jobs is doing just fine in my eyes. He’ll make decisions when and if.
As a (small) shareholder, I roll my eyes at everyone who thinks he’s SO smart he knows where Apple should be putting its cash. Most suggestions are rubbish – buy Adobe, buy Dell, buy Sony, etc. Such purchases could never deliver the ROI to justify said purchases. Apple can invest a fraction of the purchase price to build better software than Adobe has. Oh yeah, buy Dell and close it down. Smart. You just delivered more share to HP. Are you so quick to flush your own money down the toilet? And Sony? What have they got that’s worth the billions it would cost, not to mention the billions more it would cost to terminate the losers and integrate the remains into Apple.
Jobs at least has a record of smart calls. What do these smart asses have in *their* records?
‘due to a deterioration in the market environment brought on by the slowing global economy.’
excuses excuses.
apple doesn’t seem to have that problem, sony?
oh how thout have fallen..