Sony has just posted their 2011 Q2 (July-September) results and the numbers were not rosy for the electronic giant.  Sony posted a quarterly loss of ¥27 billion ($346 million) today, compared with a net income of ¥31.1 billion ($40 million) during the same quarter last year. For the year, Sony has slashed its forecast to a net loss of 90 billion yen ($1.1 billion) from a net profit of 60 billion yen. Two contributing factors to Sony’s quartery loss have been the flooding in Thailand which has disrupted Sony’s DSLR efforts, resulting in a loss of 25 billion yen in expected earnings while TV sales were missed by 9 percent, down to 20 million sets.

Sony has been facing fierce competition in the television market from the likes of cheaper TV manufactures, Samsung, and Vizio. Sony thus far has been unable to properly adapt which has seen the Bravia maker post 8 consecutive years of losses in that department.

 “For Sony to come back it needs to focus more on its next generation image technology to convince people that it still has innovation in its DNA,” said Yoshihisa Toyosaki, head of Japanese research firm and consultancy Architect Grand Design and a former Sony employee. 

Sony is hoping to address the change in their TV business by drastically changing their TV operations and breaking the operations into three separate segments. Sony will also cut its full-year operating profit outlook by 90 percent to its lowest level in three years. The one last culprit for Sony’s loss has been the strong yen which has also caused losses for Honda Motor Co and Panasonic Corp. Sony is currently in talks to buy the remaining shares of Ericsson and bring all mobile phone operations in house to better compete with Samsung and Apple.

Discuss:

What do you think is in the future of Sony? What would you do differently?

[Via Reuters]