Sony Corp. said Wednesday it will withdraw from nine of 11 overseas stock exchanges due to "extremely small" volumes of trading in its shares.

The troubled electronics firm will keep its shares on the exchanges in New York and London as well as the Tokyo and Osaka bourses.

Sony will start procedures as early as next month to delist its shares from the nine markets in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland.

The decision was made as "stock trading has become more borderless, and the trading volumes of Sony stakes at the nine bourses are extremely small," Sony said in a statement.

It said possible impacts on investors would be "minor."

Sony last month unveiled a restructuring plan aimed at returning the group to profitability by March 2007.