Sony is upbeat despite £125m loss

SONY Corporation crashed to operating losses of 23.59bn yen (£125m) in the year to end-March, but forecasts a massive turnaround for the current year.

While pre-tax profits tumbled 65% to 92.78bn yen, the company expects soaring sales of its PlayStation 2 game consoles and the benefits of group restructuring to bring in net profits of 310bn yen in the year to end-March 2003.

As the PS2 continues to crush the rival Xbox from Microsoft and current No 2 seller Nintendo's GameCube, profits from the games division this year are predicted to double to 100bn yen (£533bn).

Ahead of the official forecasts, analysts had pencilled in a 100% gain in full-year operating profits to 260bn yen (£1.42bn).

Net profits, which had been estimated at 11.5bn yen last year, are now expected to soar to 107bn yen (£570bn).

COMPUTERS and chips giant Toshiba today reported net losses in the three months to March of 46bn yen against a net income of 31bn yen a year ago, taking its full-year losses to 254bn yen, compared with last year's profits of 96bn yen.