Sony Corp., Japan's largest consumer-electronics exporter, widened its full-year net loss forecast to ¥220 billion from the ¥90 billion loss predicted in November, the company said in a statement Thursday.
The loss in the 12 months ending in March will be the fourth in a row, a first since the company was listed in 1958.
Sony, which on Wednesday named Kazuo Hirai as chief executive officer to replace Howard Stringer starting April 1, posted a third-quarter net loss of ¥159 billion, compared with the ¥43 billion average loss of four analysts' estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The Tokyo-based company cited a strengthening yen against the euro, Thai floods and a write-down from exiting a display-panel venture with Samsung Electronics Co.
"Sony's businesses have kept going downhill," Satoshi Yuzaki, a general manager at the investment information department at Takagi Securities Co. in Tokyo, said before the announcement. "How Sony will change under the new president is unclear as the entire Japanese consumer-electronics industry is facing a challenge to show a growth story."
The company cut sales targets for its cameras, personal computers and PlayStation 3 game consoles, and said that its mobile phone unit performed worse than expected. Sony nevertheless maintained its target for selling 20 million televisions.