The boy who cried wolf said something bad would happen, and it did not. Sony says something good will happen, and then it does not. It is the company that cried profits. This makes it hard for it to excite the market by, say, raising its targets. In its worst business – electronics – the problem is even worse. The company can do something radical, and leave the market unmoved. Sony announced in February that it would sell its PC unit. This was unexpected, bold and wise. The market shrugged: the shares’ returns since the announcement match the market’s.
On Monday, though, the market showed a little credulity. Sony announced that it would form joint ventures with the China’s Shanghai Oriental Pearl Group to make and sell Sony’s PlayStation game consoles in that country. The gaming business was unprofitable last year, but Sony is a technology leader in gaming and the market has only two real competitors. With the scale the China deal can help to bring, the business could be quite profitable. The shares rose 3 per cent. If the business is right, the market will hold out hopes for Sony Electronics.
Still, the most important thing is the unpopular work of getting out of irredeemably bad businesses. This means televisions first and foremost. At the company’s strategy meeting last week, it was announced that TVs would be moved into a separate unit. Prelude to a full divestment? Sony dismissed the idea, and stuck to its target of a nearly 20 per cent increase in unit sales, and a return to profits, for this year (Sony boss Kazuo Hirai said on Monday that the unit would be profitable even if it missed its unit target). But after a decade of losses, relentless deflation in TV prices despite technological advancements, and Sony’s lack of scale, a better TV business should not be the goal. The goal should be no TV business.