Is Sony In Over Its Head?
Ars Technica has posted an intriguing observation on how Sony appears to be struggling to maintain focus -- perhaps in a similar vein as Yahoo.
The traditional revenue driver [for Sony] is consumer electronics, which normally brings in about 65 percent of the company's $60+ billion of sales, year after year. But it also loses money every year, while the gaming, pictures, and financial services bring in operational profits. The split between those three segments is usually fairly even, but last year, games brought in just $74 million to the bottom line while financial services' haul was $1.6 billion of the company's $1.62 billion of operating profits, and the movies sat in between with $232 million. That's right—Sony's Japanese consumer bank made 98 percent of the company's profits, all divisions considered.
