Battered Sony sees return to profit

Sony has announced a record loss of 4.4 billion euros in the year just ended, but is predicting a return to profit in the current financial year.

With cost cuts and layoffs the Japanese consumer electronics giant aims to halve the losses in its TV business which has been hemorrhaging money.

Sony’s shares have dropped 12 percent since the start of the year they and are near their lowest in a quarter of a century.

The share price is a sign of how the Walkman and PlayStation maker has lost its innovative edge and fallen behind Apple and Samsung.

Under new CEO Kazuo Hirai, Sony is slashing costs – 10,000 jobs, or six percent of the global workforce, will go – in a bid to turn around its struggling TV unit.

At a briefing last month, Hirai sketched a future driven by mobile devices such as the Xperia smartphone, gaming and cameras, as well as medical devices and electric car batteries, along with big cost cuts in the TV business.

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