Sony products division suffers $2.8bn loss

Sony’s consumer products and services division has been hit by a $2.8bn loss for the last year.

The news of such a dramatic loss also comes after Sony reported an operating income of $429 million for its PlayStation business last year, although the console was then placed under a different arm.

Sony’s consumer division also includes LCD TV’s, PC’s and digital cameras.

Hardware sales fell across the board, with the PS3 selling 13.9 million units, down from 14.3 million in 2011, whilst PSP and PS2 sales dropped to 6.8 million and 4.1 million.

Sony has forecast however that sales of its portable systems, including Vita, will more than double to 16 million during the next year.

Software sales for the PS3 picked up slightly however, up, up 8.7 million to 156.6m.

Precise Vita sales were not specifically disclosed in the report, but Sony CEO Kaz Hirai has revealed that it has sold approximately 1.8 million in the last month

The Electronics giant expects to see a drop in home console sales to 16 million from 18 million, with packaged software expected to stay at a consistent rate of 196.7 million.

The electronics giant also put this year’s poor performance down to a decrease in sales of LCD TV’s, PCs, digital cameras.

It also cited unfavourable foreign exchange rates and the impact of the recent earthquake in Japan which devastated parts of the country.

Altogether, Sony reported a company-wide net loss of $5.74 billion.