Sony to Close 20 out of 31 US Retail Stores

And the heads keep on rolling at Sony. After the company decided to close down its VAIO division, resulting in a massive loss for the year for the troubled electronic division, news spread in the last 24 hours of Sony employees who were suddenly left without a job. In the near future, Sony plans to cut 5,000 global jobs with 1,000 of those coming from the US. The worst hit part of Sony will be their San Diego division, which will lose 500 employees. This all came at the awkward time where Santa Monica Studios, one of the premier and most prestigious PlayStation game studios is also firing 50 employees and cancelling a high profile, internal project. With all of this news manifesting itself in a day’s time, Sony has also come to announce that will be closing the majority of their retail stores in the US.

According to Sony, the company will close 20 of their retail outlets, leaving only 11 stores standing. Mike Fasulo, President and COO of Sony Electronics:

While these moves were extremely tough, they were absolutely necessary to position us in the best possible place for future growth. I am entirely confident in our ability to turn the business around, in achieving our preferred future, and continue building on our flawless commitment to customer loyalty through the complete entertainment experience only Sony can offer.

While the news in some ways isn’t a total shock, seeing how a majority of the Sony retail channels I’ve ever visited have traditionally been empty, it’s still another blow to the company’s image. Even worse is for the many employees who will now have to seek employment elsewhere. The list of stores that will remain open and those that will be closed is as follows:

11 Sony stores to remain open

Mall	Location
Fashion Valley	San Diego, CA	Retail store
University Town Center	San Diego, CA	Retail store
South Coast Plaza	Costa Mesa, CA	Retail store
Stanford	Palo Alto, CA	Retail store
NY Flagship, Sony Plaza	New York, NY	Retail store
Roosevelt Field	Garden City, NY	Retail store
Walt Whitman	Huntington Station, NY	Retail store
Mall at Millenia	Orlando, FL	Retail store
Aventura	Aventura, FL	Retail store
Houston Galleria	Houston, TX	Retail store
The Americana at Brand	Glendale, CA	Retail store

*Sony retail store on SPE lot will remain open

Closing – 20 stores

Tysons, VA

University Village, WA

Galleria Dallas, TX

Forum Shops, NV

Pentagon, VA

Boca Raton, FL

Menlo Park, NJ

Las Americas, CA

Camarillo, CA

Aurora, IL

Gilroy, CA

Wrentham, MA

Pleasant Prairie, WI

San Marcos, TX

Cherry Creek, CO

Dolphin, FL

Century City, CA

Valley Fair, CA

Comcast, PA

Central Valley, N.Y. (Woodbury Common Outlets)

While Apple has seen great success with their retail channels as they become the highest grossing outlets in the planet by square footage, Sony has struggled to draw much attention to their channels. In early 2011, Sony launched a new retail initiative with a completely redesigned experience that was designed to help the company get back into the highly competitive retail environment. We went along with Mike Fasulo for the launch. Microsoft has also attempted to compete with Apple in the retail space and their success has been marginal at best. Despite that, Microsoft, unlike Sony commands a huge war chest and is able to sustain short term losses for a long term vision.

We’re once again truly saddened by the loss of jobs and negative effects on lives that these events tend to bring with them and wish those employees who are affected by this the best in this hard time.

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SONY U.S. ELECTRONICS ANNOUNCES ORGANIZATION RESTRUCTURE

by Communications 02/26/2014

SAN DIEGO, FEBRUARY 26, 2014- Sony Electronics today announced plans to restructure its organization to maintain its competitiveness in an evolving consumer electronics market.

In line with Sony Corporation’s Feb. 6 earnings announcement outlining an estimated headcount reduction of roughly 5,000 employees globally, Sony Electronics confirmed a total staff reduction of one-third by the end of the calendar year, affecting approximately 1,000 employees across all sites. In addition, in an effort to further streamline costs and continue focus on existing partner relations, Sony announced the closure of 20 U.S. Sony Stores

“While these moves were extremely tough, they were absolutely necessary to position us in the best possible place for future growth,” said Mike Fasulo, President and COO of Sony Electronics. “I am entirely confident in our ability to turn the business around, in achieving our preferred future, and continue building on our flawless commitment to customer loyalty through the complete entertainment experience only Sony can offer.”

Sony maintains its position as a leader in the electronics industry, pushing the limits of innovation with products and experiences exclusive to Sony. It continues to drive its industry leadership in premium products across all of CE, including all-things-4K, and further plans to reinforce its market leadership through strengthening its 4K product lineup and bolstering 2K models in 2014, with a continued commitment to the future success of its U.S. television business. The company will place an increased focus on its premium products – including its digital imaging line, high-resolution audio, and full suite of professional solutions – while leveraging its strengths in hardware, content and gaming.

There are no further details at this time.

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