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JAKARTA: Sony Corp, the Japanese electronics maker that’s cutting 10,000 jobs, predicted profit that lagged behind analysts’ estimates amid slumping TV and game-console sales and worsening earnings from the mobile-phone unit.

 

Net income in the year ending March 31 may be 30 billion yen ($377 million), the Tokyo-based maker of Bravia TVs and Cyber-shot cameras said in a statement today. That compared with the 61.4 billion-yen average of 18 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

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Kazuo Hirai, president and chief executive officer of Sony Corp., center, leaves a group photo session with the company's executives at a news conference in Tokyo. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

 

Kazuo Hirai, 51, who took over as chief executive officer last month, is eliminating about 6 percent of the workforce at Japan’s largest electronics exporter after losing customers to Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and Apple Inc. (AAPL) Hirai is turning to mobile devices, games and digital imaging to revive Sony, which has lost about 90 percent of its value since 2000 while failing to deliver trend-setting products like the Walkman.

 

“Sony will probably reduce losses from its TV unit as it carries out its plan to cut costs,” said Yasuo Nakane, a consumer-electronics analyst with Deutsche Securities Inc. in Tokyo. “There are possibilities that TV earnings will perform better than expected this fiscal year.”

 

Sales this year may be 7.4 trillion yen, the company said, compared with the 6.78 trillion-yen average forecast of 18 analysts. Sony is targeting to sell 17.5 million TVs this year, a drop from the 19.6 million units it sold last year, according to the statement. Compact-camera sales will remain little changed at 21 million units, Sony said. (Bloomberg/LN)