Back in February, Sony was reporting a $2.9 billion loss for the year to March. Well, the total for the first quarter of the fiscal year looks a little better -- but it's still not good.
Today, Sony announced a $312 million loss for its first quarter, which ran from April 1, 2012 to June 30, 2012. The company says that restructuring costs and the strong yen deserve some of the blame, but that overall sales are down across its home entertainment, mobile and gaming divisions.
As a result of February's announcement, Kazuo Hirai stepped into Howard Stringer's CEO shoes on April 1, 2012. Hirai took control with a plan to shift some of Sony's focus to mobile products.
The good news is that bringing Sony Mobile into the fold did fuel some of the company's $19.2 billion in sales -- but it cost a boatload to make all of that happen.
Also, the once mighty PlayStation division is down, taking a $45 million hit. The PlayStation 3 console and the PSP handheld are getting on in years, and the new Vita handheld hasn't taken off as expected. In fact, Sony has slashed its sales prediction of 16 million handhelds to 12 million.
When it comes to home entertainment, the company was down $127.8 million overall for the quarter, which is less than the year earlier. Still, division sales are down 26 percent, to $3.2 billion.
Today's announcement of losses also comes with a few adjusted predictions. The Wall Street Journal says that the company now sees a net profit of $255.6 billion, down from $383.4 billion. It also has cut its operating-profit forecast to $1.66 billion (from $ 2.3 billion), and put its revenue forecast at $86.9 billion (down from $94.5 billion).
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