Sony sees 5-fold jump in profit, below consensus

TOKYO, JAPAN: Sony Corp forecast a five-fold jump in annual operating profit as the Japanese electronics maker expands flat TV sales and launches 3D-capable videogames, but the outlook missed market expectations.

Sony has shed jobs, shut factories and slashed procurement costs to better compete with nimbler global rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co and Apple Inc, and now hopes to reap the fruit of its restructuring.

The world's No.2 LCD TV maker behind Samsung has vowed to make its TV and game operations, two major earnings drags at Sony in recent years, turn profitable this year by slashing manufacturing costs and boosting unit sales.

Sony, which vies with Canon Inc in digital cameras and Nintendo Co and Microsoft Corp in games, expects operating profit of 160 billion yen ($1.7 billion) in the year to March 2011, up from a 31.77 billion yen profit last year.

The forecast fell short of the consensus of a 209.3 billion yen profit in a poll of 21 analysts by Thomson Reuters.

Chief Executive Howard Stringer believes Sony is best positioned to benefit from growing consumer interest in 3D images as it holds a wide business portfolio spread across electronics and entertainment such as movie studios, theatre-use projectors and professional-grade video cameras as well as games and TVs.

Sony plans to launch 3D LCD TVs and 3D-ready games in June to spur demand for its Bravia TVs and PlayStation 

For the three months ended March 31, Sony posted an operating loss of 56.0 billion yen, against a loss of 294.3 billion yen in the same quarter a year earlier.

The quarterly result came as little surprise after the creator of PlayStation games this week updated its earnings outlook for the past business year.

Shares in Sony closed up 4.1 percent at 3,165 yen ahead of the announcement, outperforming a 2.4 percent rise in the Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index. Sony's stock has gained 18.5 percent in the year to date, double the gain in the subindex.