Sony Rumored to Post a One Billion Dollar Loss

By Joe Haygood | January 13, 2009

For only the second time in their company history, and the first time since the early 1990’s, Sony is poised to post a billion dollar loss at the end of their fiscal year.  Even more grim is the fact that depending on the stock of electronics in their warehouses, the loss could expand to two billion dollars. 

Sony has put their guidance markers at the beginning of the year as a possible $2.2 billion profit, but poor sales across all lines, including the underperforming sales of the PS3 have caused it turmoil.  Also hurting Sony is the unusually strong Japanese Yen, which is currently trading at less than 100 Yen to a US Dollar.  The lower the Yen goes to the Dollar, the harder it is for Sony to translate profits from the US, as the profit in the US is worth less after the currency translation.

Already after announcing that 8,000 people would be laid off, we also get word that 8,000 more temporary positions will be cut, and that multiple divisions will have to accept cuts in their divisions.  While these cuts will be deep, Sony Online Entertainment will be spared from the cutting block.

And a fun fact for the end of this article, that you can use on Jeopardy someday: This is only the second loss Sony has posted since they went public in 1958.