Sony has revised its earnings forecast for the 2014 fiscal year thanks to the sale of its Sony Vaio PC division.
Despite the 2014 fiscal year ending back on March 31 2014, Sony has issued a statement warning investors that its financial results may not quite be as high as initially expected.
Sony originally estimated it would generate an income of 80 billion yen (£462 million) during the financial year, but it has now revised that estimate down to 26 billion (£150 million).
That huge drop is a decrease of 67.5 per cent, with expected net loss to be 130 billion yen (£752 million).
“Since Sony’s announcement on February 6, 2014 that it will exit the PC business, PC sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014 and expected PC sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2015 are underperforming the February expectation.
Consequently, Sony expects to record write-downs for excess components in inventory and accrual of expenses to compensate suppliers for unused components ordered for Sony’s spring PC lineup.”
These major losses are incurred by Sony selling off its Vaio PC business. It had to pay 30 billion yen (£173 million) in fees just to close down the division, plus it still has surplus unsold laptops and computers to its name.
Just to make it worse, Sony also expects to pay a 25 billion yen (£145 million) penalty related to its disc business, which isn’t performing as well as expected.
“Sony Corporation today announced significant new measures to address reform of its PC and TV businesses aimed at accelerating the revitalization and growth of its electronics business,” an official statement from the company stated when announcing the Vaio sale.
“Sony and Japan Industrial Partners Inc. ("JIP") today concluded a memorandum of understanding confirming the parties' intent for Sony to sell to JIP Sony's PC business currently operated under the VAIO brand.”
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