Sony’s name is synonymous with leading edge technology and quality consumer electronics, but as the market declines do Sony have what it takes to stay at the top?
Originally founded way back in 1946 Sony quickly became a household name for consumer electronics. Just a quick look at their portfolio of products and inventions would even make Thomas Edison envious. Who could forget such classics as the Walkman, Blu-ray, digital 8 and if your really old, Betamax and quite possibly their crowning jewel the Playstation.
But of late Sony seems to have hit a bad patch posting a loss every year for the last 3 years. The latest financial figures don’t look any better with the latest losses totaling £3.5bn.
Sony themselves have blamed everything from natural disasters and unfavourable exchange rates to conditions in developing countries for this latest poor result.
So what next for Sony? When as any globally struggling company does, it’s about to shed a few pounds from the waist in the form of 10,000 employees. With nothing new planned for the immediate future to stimulate sales and the continued decline in electronic consumer market coupled with so many other brands offering products with better specification, how much longer can Sony continue to suffer annual losses such as these? With the upcoming console rescue their margins?
Kitguru Says: It would be a massive loss for the industry to lose such a pioneering company, but is time running out?
Essentially Sony have gone downmarket by trying to cover all bases, for example their cheaper and poorer quality line budget laptops, a market where Sony never usually used to compete.