Sony Sticks To Existing Equity Targets

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has said that the company needs to cut fixed costs in order to cope with a downturn in demand, after the company recently cut its annual operating profit forecast by over 50 percent. However, Stringer was adamant that he was sticking to the company’s targets for the financial year ending March 2011, including a return on equity of 10 percent and a doubling of revenues in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. Speaking to reporters, Stringer also defended the company’s strategy of using content such as movies and software to drive sales of hardware. A strong yen has caused particular problems for Sony in recent months, with much of the company’s development and manufacturing still taking place in its home country. Analysts now predict that the company will begin to shift more of its business outside of Japan. As quoted by Reuters, Stringer commented at a business seminar in Tokyo: "We are selling a lot of television sets, more than ever, but we are not making money on them, and that's a by-product of a fixed-cost problem that we need to address." "A successful brand in a crisis buys you time. But it doesn't guarantee survival," he added.