Sony and Panasonic face brighter future

Sony and Panasonic signalled the worst may be over for the world's two largest consumer electronics makers as they raised their full-year outlooks yesterday, helped by cost cuts.

Sony posted its fourth consecutive quarterly loss – of ¥33bn (£219m) – in July-September, hit by sluggish mobile phone sales and price cuts of PlayStation 3 game console. However, the company cut its loss forecast for the year to March 2010 to ¥60bn from ¥110bn. Panasonic, the maker of Viera flat TVs and Lumix digital cameras, raised its full-year operating profit forecast by 60 per cent and posted its first profit in three quarters on robust sales of DVD recorders and appliances.