Sony unveils new versions of Vaio PC

TOKYO: Sony Corp on Friday launched new versions of its Vaio personal
computers for the Japan market and said it was sticking to this year's PC
shipment targets, which were set in April, despite recent profit warnings.

Keiji Kimura, president of Sony's mobile network company, said the company
aimed to ship 3.9 million PCs worldwide in the current business year to next
March, including 2.1 million overseas, compared with global shipments of 2.5
million last year.

He added that the downturn in the PC market, with Japanese market data in
recent weeks showing even once-hot retail sales of notebook PCs edging below
year-ago levels, was likely to be a temporary phenomenon. "The demand is
definitely out there," he said. "We're looking for it to come back to
life."

Such optimism contrasted with a profit warning by the company late last
month, when it cut its consolidated operating profit forecast for 2001/02 by
more than half to 120 billion yen ($988 million). That followed an earlier
revision in July.

Sony, the top-selling notebook PC maker in Japan according to retail sales
data from Nikkei Market Access, also unveiled its latest Vaios for Japan, which
include added wireless data features and Microsoft Corp's new Windows XP
operating system.

Among the new products were Sony's first notebook computer with a built-in
2.4 gigahertz wireless LAN, which can hook up to the Internet without cables
from anywhere in the home or at one of Tokyo's Internet cafes.

The company also offered a five gigahertz wireless LAN terminal that can
transmit movie-quality moving pictures from a desktop PC to a notebook PC in
another room.

Sony's shares ended Friday trade up five percent at 5,060 yen, climbing back
to levels seen before the September 11 attacks as a rally in US technology
stocks spurred robust gains in their Japanese counterparts.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.