Sony has officially said they plan to cut TV production by 40%; now retailers in Australia are having second thoughts as to whether they will stock as many Sony TVs as they have in the past.A survey of several major retail chains in Australia reveals some retailers are ready to cut Sony TV models out within weeks while others have said that they will reduce the amount of Sony TV models they range replacing them with additional models from Samsung, LG and Panasonic.
A Good Guy Manager in Sydney said “Sony has a real problem with their TVs, the message is out there now with consumers that the brand is not as good as it use to be. Consumers want either an LG or Samsung TV: not a Sony TV”.
Some retailers nominated both Toshiba and Sharp as possible replacement models. One major retailer said the Japanese TV manufacturers are not able to offer the same pricing as the Korean and Chinese manufacturers in the current financial climate.
Currently Sharp is advertising a 70″ LED TV in the new Harvey Norman Smart TV catalogue at $4,498. It has no built in wireless, content streams similar to what Panasonic, LG and Samsung are offering and no voice activation or smartphone or tablet control capability.
Last week Sony said that will shed 10,000 jobs this year and report a $6 Billion + loss. The Company has not made a profit from selling their Bravia flat panel TVs in eight years.
In all, Sony is set to lose 6 per cent of its global workforce and will put more focus into three areas: gaming, mobile devices and digital imaging.
On the gaming side of things, Sony explained that it will be pushing more downloadable titles out through the PSN and will expand the phones and tablets that are compatible with the PlayStation Suite.
Mobile-phone wise, it will “launch new mobile products and establish new business models”.
While Sony was quiet about its plans for digital imaging, it did hint at trying to tap into the rather lucrative medical side of things.
