Sony chief says major turnaround complete

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Sony (Hanover: SON1.HA - news) chief executive Kazuo Hirai on Tuesday hailed a years-long company restructuring as a success, but said struggles in its movie business remain a "pressing issue".
The 56-year-old company veteran was tapped five years ago to lead a major overhaul at the once-iconic company, which was suffering from huge losses largely tied to a hard-hit consumer electronics business.
restructuring the business," Hirai told reporters at a corporate strategy briefing.
"The major downsizing is complete.
"The biggest factor is that our consumer electronics business, which struggled for many years, has turned into a division with stable profitability," he added.
Sony's bleeding television business -- which Hirai had refused to sell despite calls to dump the unit -- is now back to profitability as the firm focuses on producing fewer models with an eye on the higher-end market.
South Korean and Taiwanese rivals have battered higher-cost Japanese TV makers, including Sony and Sharp (Swiss: SHA.SW - news) .
"(We) changed our strategy to go after profitability rather than focus on the size of the business," Hirai said, referring to the TV unit.
"Now (Frankfurt: 11N.F - news) the challenge is to stay in the black."
In recent years, Sony has sold off a string of assets, including the Vaio laptop business and a unit that made rechargeable lithium ion batteries.
Smartphone components and the top-selling PlayStation 4 games console have boosted its bottom line.
But the company took a nearly $1 billion write-down at its movie unit as Sony Pictures' woes included box-office disappointments such as a reboot of the Eighties classic "Ghostbusters" with an all-female cast and "Inferno", a sequel to the "Da Vinci Code".
The movie business is "a pressing issue for Sony", Hirai told reporters.
Sony chief says major turnaround complete

[ethomaz]

He did really a great job... not just for the game division.

[Legend]

Yeah we hardly get any Sony doom articles anymore.

That's nice.