Sony dramatically lowers forecast

Serious profit warning as £1.2 billion loss predicted

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22 January 2009 15:30 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Perhaps unsurprising considering the mounting bad news we're hearing from the industry today, but Sony has just announced a revised results forecast for its fiscal year ending March 2009.

Sony obviously blames the global economic slowdown, but also the appreciation of the yen, that has meant its products are more expensive in foreign markets.

Sony now expects sales to come in at 7.7 trillion yen (about £63 billion) around a 14% drop on its previous prediction while the company warns it will see a loss of around 150 billion yen - around £1.2 billion.

In a statement, Sony says: "Consolidated sales and operating income for the second half of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009 are expected to be significantly lower than the October forecast, primarily due to a deterioration in the business environment as a result of the global economic slowdown, the continued appreciation of the yen, the impact from the decline in the Japanese stock market and an increase in expected restructuring charges".

Sony has lowered volume estimates across all its ranges from its initial October predictions with over 2 million less Cyber-shot cameras said to have been sold, a million less Bravia TVs and a million less Vaio PCs and laptops.

On the gaming side of things, although Sony has cut its PSP sales predictions by a million, the PlayStation 3 target is the only one to be left unchanged at 10 million.