Sony Corp., forecasting its first back-to-back annual losses in half a century, said Tuesday it will start selling "netbook" personal computers next month in an attempt to benefit from rising demand for the cheaper, scaled-down machines.
The computers will be sold for about ¥60,000 in Japan and will be available under the Vaio brand in 54 countries, said Satoshi Ihara, a marketing manager at Sony.
Sony trails Asustek Computer Inc., the Taiwanese pioneer of the little laptops, and Toshiba Corp. in offering a low-cost, small-screen computer with reduced processing power, a product category set to become the fastest-growing segment of the PC industry this year.