Sony Corp said yesterday it suf-fered an operating loss of ¥20.8 billion (US$175 million) for the three months to September largely due to a mounting defective battery crisis.
The electronics giant, which reported a ¥74.6 billion in operating profit a year earlier, said it booked a¥51.2 billion provision for the quarter "that relates to charges expected to be incurred as a result of the [battery] recall."
Its net profit for the quarter plunged 94.1 percent to ¥1.7 billion as it incurred a pre-tax loss of ¥26.1 billion, compared with a pre-tax profit of ¥95.4 billion for the same period last year.
Despite the battery woes, sales of its electronics products as well as revenue from its film businesses remained brisk, raising total revenue for the quarter by 8.3 percent to a record ¥1.85 trillion.
Sony left its full-year forecast unchanged from its latest projection announced last Thursday when it more than halved its operating profit target for the fiscal year ending next March.
The company slashed its target for operating profit to ¥50 billion from ¥130 billion as it cut its net profit target to ¥80 billion from ¥130 billion, but left its revenue target unchanged at ¥8.23 trillion.
Sony said on Tuesday that Welsh-born chief executive Howard Stringer and president Ryoji Chubachi would continue in their jobs to oversee the recall of millions of the group's laptop computer batteries.
Sony said last week that as many as 9.6 million of its batteries could now be recalled at a cost of ¥51 billion owing to fears they might catch fire.
Sony said it believed microscopic metal particles, produced in the manufacturing processes, may cause short-circuiting and overheating in the affected batteries that were produced between August 2003 and last February.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary