“I AM deeply sorry for shareholders and I, as a president, am taking this situation very seriously. I would like to take responsibility by finishing implementing structural reform efforts in this fiscal year and returning the company to profitability in the next fiscal year,” apologised Sony chief executive Kazuo Hirai for the electronics firm’s poor performace. He was front-paged in the Wall Street Journal bowing before a press conference in Tokyo this past Wednesday.
Sony is expected to post US$2.15bil losses for the financial year ending March 2015 due to write-downs in the smartphones business. Not only is the company’s losses almost five times what it forecast four months ago, it will also not pay an annual dividend for the first time since listing in 1958.