Sony CEO: This restructuring will be the last

Hirai (Kazuo Hirai), who served as Sony's chief executive two years ago to lead the Japanese iconic company, has not been able to bring Sony to a renaissance, which has cast doubt on whether he is qualified for the job. At the beginning of his tenure, Hirai promised to revive Sony's ailing consumer electronics business and make the TV business profitable after losing 7 billion of dollars in a row. But it backfired, Sony's TV business will lose for the tenth consecutive year, while Hirai expects the company to lose $1.1 billion trillion in the current fiscal year. This is the second time that Hirai has trimmed Sony's performance forecasts for the past four months, and Sony has not shown anything to contend with Apple and Samsung Electronics. Sony announced in Wednesday that it would sell its PC division, lay off 5000 people and split the TV business into separate entities. All this is almost impossible to convince shareholders that Sony is making progress. Fujiwara has tried a lot and if his plans do not work next year, I have to be skeptical about his ability to manage, said Otoma Hirai, chief fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, the investment company. It will be very challenging for him to lead the company toward the direction of Kiiki hope. Sony US depository Receipts in Wednesday closed at USD 16.52, up 3.9% per cent in the previous session. The company's shares rose 1.5% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Wednesday and closed at 1624 yen. Sony's share price has fallen 11% this year. More changes Sony said in a Wednesday statement that in the fiscal year ended March 31, the company's net loss will reach 110 billion yen, far from the revised net profit of 30 billion yen last October. Sony's Full-year operating profit will be 80 billion yen, less than half of the 170 billion trillion yen expected last October. Sony expects revenue to remain at 7.7 trillion trillion yen for the fiscal year. Hirai said in Wednesday that my current duty is to revive the electronics business. I would say the reorganization will be the last, but because of the intense competition, the restructuring may need to be deepened. Sony expects the company to charge 70 billion yen for restructuring television and PC departments in the fiscal year and the next fiscal year. After that, Sony is expected to reduce its annual fixed spending by 100 billion yen. Mitsushige Akino, Chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Asset Management, an asset management firm, said investors had little confidence in Hirai. He says the reorganization is over, but is it true? His reorganization did not involve any growth strategy. TV business Sony TV business will lose 25 billion yen this year, which will be the tenth consecutive year of the business losses. Sony is currently planning to split the TV business into separate entities. As the world's third-largest TV maker, last October set the target for the fiscal year's TV shipments from 1500After cutting down to 14 million units, Sony continued to maintain the shipment target. Hirai said in Wednesday that Sony would not rule out the sale of television after a variety of future offers. This expression of Hirai is completely different from the way it was expressed in the February 2012. At the time, he said it was hard to imagine Sony withdrawing from the television business. Over the past decade, Sony TV, known for its brand, has lost up to 787 billion trillion yen. Even so, Sony has launched a series of ultra high-definition TVs to the market at a maximum price of $25,000. Myojo Asset Management, chief executive of the asset management company Makoto Kikuchi said Sony said every year that it would make the TV business profitable, but failed to meet its goals each time. Like PC business, Sony should stop making televisions. PC business Sony announced in Wednesday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japanese investment Fund JIP (Industrial), which deals with the sale of its PC business and VAIO brand. When Hirai became the CEO of Sony, he had said that mobile devices, games and imaging products would be the three pillars of his recovery strategy. In the third quarter ending September 30, 2013, Sony has become the world's third-largest smartphone maker, according to Bloomberg statistics. In Wednesday, however, Sony lowered its Xperia smartphone shipments from 42 million to 40 million. The dawn is far from Sony, says Yasuaki Kogure, chief investment officer of SBI Asset Management Co, an asset management firm. It makes me wonder if Sony needs radical change. One of the highlights of Sony's PS4 business earnings is the PS4 business. The product has sold more than 4.2 million units in the 6 weeks since it was launched in November last year, a stronger performance than Microsoft and Nintendo's similar products. Before he became CEO of Sony in April 2012, Hirai was known for reviving the corporate gaming sector. At the time, Hirai defeated the Vice President Gigang (Hiroshi Yoshioka), who failed to revive the television business. Sony has been generating one-off profits by selling assets. Sony said last month that it had begun laying off staff in the Hollywood studios to cut its spending by 250 million dollars. Earlier, activist investor Daniel Le Boux Daniel Loeb has urged Sony to spin off its entertainment business. Moody's downgraded Sony's long-term bond level to junk levels last month. Moody's then said Sony's revival of television and PC business faced challenges. Fitch, another bond-rating agency, had already downgraded Sony's bond rating to junk. Hideki Yasuda, analyst at Ace Cato in Tokyo, said Hirai's approach was not enoughAggressive. Sony's new product has not created a huge market demand for Apple's ipod and iphone.