Sony promises higher restructuring and alert to another injury in the year

Sony said it will intensify a broad restructuring this year to combat swollen costs and leave some non-profitable businesses, seeking to leave behind years of persistent losses.
The Japanese giant of electronic consumer goods, which made an alert on Wednesday about a second consecutive net loss for this fiscal year, is struggling to recover after being undermined by more agile Asian rivals in its main markets.
Sony said it will spend 135 billion yen (1.32 billion dollars) in restructuring in the year to March 31, in addition to 177.4 billion yen spent in the previous year, as it sells its loss-making business of Vaio PCs and disk storage.
The company projected that these costs will take it to a net loss of 50 billion yen for the fiscal year of 2014/15, their sixth loss in seven years. Combined, the losses add up to almost 1 trillion yen.
The slow pace of restructuring of Sony raised doubts about the leadership of Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai after he failed to achieve his goal of restoring the main Electronics Division.
Sony said operating profits in the fiscal year of 2014/15 until March 31 should grow more than five times the level of 140 billion euros the previous year, staying below the average estimate of 227 billion yen from 20 analysts queried by Thomson Reuters StarMine.