Things seem to be looking up for Sony. After a tough first year, sales of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) are finally gaining momentum while the company's new flat television is reviving its reputation for innovation.
The iconic Japanese company, recovering from a profit slump, is enjoying brisk sales of digital cameras and other electronic goods and expects its operating earnings to soar more than six-fold this year.
Since Howard Stringer, a Welsh-born US citizen, took over in 2005, Sony has axed thousands of jobs, floated its financial arm on the stock market and struck a deal to sell its advanced semiconductor operations to Toshiba.
PHOTO: AFP
Even Middle East investors, flush with petrodollars, have taken note, with a Dubai fund recently buying a substantial stake in the group, helping its shares to rocket up 14 percent over the past week.
Adding fuel to the rally, the company announced that PS3 sales in North America had more than tripled in the crucial Thanksgiving holiday week after a US$100 price cut.
The icing on the cake came on Friday when magazine publisher Enterbrain reported that the PS3 video games console had finally outsold Nintendo's Wii in Japan last month.
The upturn in sales came after Sony cut the price of the PS3 by 10 percent in Japan and launched a new slimmed-down version, ratcheting up the competition with its rivals ahead of the crucial year-end sales period.
A better line-up of games compared with a year ago is also making the PS3 more attractive, analysts said.
Sony is "making up lost ground," said Hiroshi Kamide, an analyst at KBC Securities.
"Going forward another 12 months or so I'm sure we'll see better titles turning up as well. I wouldn't say Sony's back on form and everything is going to be OK now but it feels like the proper launch [for the PS3] this year," he said.
Sony put the emphasis on chip power and ultra-realistic graphics for the PS3, but since its release a year ago it has trailed badly behind Nintendo's cheaper, user-friendly Wii machine that aims to appeal to a wider audience.
Analysts said that although the PS3 might not maintain its lead over the Wii in Japan for long, the company should be able to gradually cut its losses in its game division as it sells more consoles and reduces production costs.
"It's certainly a sign that the momentum of the PS3 business is improving," Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson said of the recent sales upturn.
"The PS3 and the games business is past the worst in terms of financial losses and the sales momentum is improving because of the price cut and the new model," he said.
Sony sold 183,217 PS3s in Japan in the four weeks to Nov. 25, while Nintendo sold 159,193 Wii consoles, according to Enterbrain.
"The PS3 has already seen the worst and finally you are seeing sales rebounding," said an analyst at an investment bank who asked not to be named.
Sony, which changed the way the world listens to music with the Walkman, is now fighting back after being caught off guard in recent years by innovative new products such as Apple's iPod and Nintendo's Wii.
The iconic company is trying to regain some of its reputation for cutting-edge technology and this weekend launched the world's first organic light emitting diode TV.
By sandwiching a very thin layer of organic material between two plates, the television is said to use less power and offer brighter images and wider viewing angles than liquid crystal display panels.
With the group's fortunes on the up-and-up, Dubai International Capital, a fund owned by the oil-rich emirate, announced last week that it had bought a "substantial" stake in Sony without disclosing the value.
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
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS