Just a week ago, Apple announced another record-breaking quarter, with a revenue of $46.33 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.06 billion. This again reaffirmed Apple is the world’s most profitable company with $97.6 billion in cash and marketable securities, up $16 billion from the prior quarter. Sony, who was once known as the leading electronic manufacturer in the world, was seen in the eyes of late Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, as the company to beat and imitate. Now, Sony has followed up with their own quarterly earnings report, and, despite being in many of the same consumer segments as Apple, the company posted greater-than-expected losses for this past quarter while raising their loss for the full year.

For the October-December quarter, Sony Corp. reported a net loss of 159 billion yen ($2.1 billion), primarily due to strong competition from rival Samsung, resulting in lower TV sales while flooding in Thailand delayed the launch of many highly-anticipated Sony cameras, including the NEX-7, Alpa A65, and A77. This has resulted in the company modifying their original original forecast of a 90 billion yen ($1.2 billion) loss to be a 220 billion yen ($2.8 billion) loss for the full year through March. Sony incurred expenses of 8.9 billion yen ($114 million) for  direct damage to their Thailand manufacturing facilities.

Sony’s quarterly sales were $23 billion, down 17.4% when compared to last year. Sony’s bread and butter, the consumer products and services division, which oversees products like the PlayStation 3, Bravia televisions and tablets also saw a 24% drop in sales, resulting in a loss of over $1 billion. Sony also recorded equity in net loss for S-LCD of 66 billion yen ($846 million) after ending their joint venture with Samsung.

The burning question now remains, despite a lowered sales and earning forecast for the most recent quarter: Will Sony able to capitalize on the new year? The answer may in fact be yes as the company continues to shed off unwanted divisions and to restructure externally. Most recently, Sony sold their remaining stake of their Samsung S-LCD venture. Despite the loss, Sony can now start off with a cleaner record while they believe that, due to them no longer manufacturing LCD screens and instead, opting to buy them (like other competitors) from Samsung, they will be able to lock in more favorable prices. Sony has also begun full production of their entire NEX and Alpha lines of cameras while PlayStation sales have continued to be on the rise. Sony also recently purchased the remaining shares of the Sony Ericsson venture and has planned to bring the entire mobile division in-house to better utilize Sony’s strengths and services. Dealing with all this will be their new appointed president and CEO, Kaz Hirai, who will take helm of the company starting on April 1st. Is 2012 poised to be the year of Sony? Only time will tell but they seem to be positioned better then any other time in recent history.

Discuss:

Despite posting great losses, is Sony now in a better position to compete?

[Via Sony]