AllThingsD » Daisuke Wakabayashi

Sony Board to Discuss Third Point Plan

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Yoshio Takahashi — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:30:32 +0000

Under pressure from an activist investor to take part of its entertainment business public, Sony said it plans to discuss the proposal with its board.

“The proposal from Third Point, Dan Loeb is something that we should discuss thoroughly at a board meeting and then we’ll decide Sony’s stance,” Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai said in a briefing Wednesday to lay out his strategic vision for the company. “Therefore, we are now going to start the discussion and we are still at the starting stage.”

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Sharp Loss Widens to $5.36 Billion

Mayumi Negishi and Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:30:28 +0000

After posting an annual net loss of ¥545 billion ($5.4 billion), the biggest in its 100-year history, Sharp Corp. said it plans to replace both its president and chairman after just one year in an unusually public rebuke of former management that underscores the depth of the struggling electronics maker’s problems.

Sharp said Tuesday that Executive Vice President Kozo Takahashi, 58, will replace current President Takashi Okuda, who led the company during a tumultuous year in which it scrambled to secure capital and warned about its future.

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Sony Says Entertainment Business Not for Sale

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:30:14 +0000

U.S. hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb proposed Tuesday that Sony Corp. spin off its entertainment arm — comprising its movie and music businesses — by taking up to 20 percent of the unit public.

In a letter to Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai, Mr. Loeb, founder of the hedge fund Third Point, said that by listing the entertainment arm, Sony would be able to focus on unlocking the “considerable and underappreciated value” at its electronics business. He added that he sees as much as 60 percent upside to Sony shares if the company followed his proposals.

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Panasonic Posts Another Full-Year Loss

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:04:31 +0000

Panasonic Corp. Friday posted net losses exceeding ¥750 billion ($7.4 billion) for the second straight year, dragged down by hefty restructuring charges aimed at fixing its ailing electronics business.

The red ink for the year ended March 31 brings the company’s losses for the past two bruising business years to about $15 billion. Like its Japanese rivals, Panasonic is reeling from a consumer electronics industry in rapid decline.

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Samsung's "Good" Problem: A Growing Cash Pile

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Min-Jeong Lee — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:50:42 +0000

Having grabbed a big chunk of the profitable smartphone business from Apple Inc. and others, Samsung Electronics Co. now faces a new, enviable Apple-like challenge: a mammoth pile of unspent, accumulated cash.

After a first quarter marked by a 42 percent rise in net profit, Samsung said its cash and cash equivalents grew to nearly $40 billion at the end of March. After stripping out debt, Samsung’s net cash position is 31.2 trillion won, or $28.5 billion. Already one of the biggest in Asia, Samsung’s cash pile is building at an eye-popping rate. Its net cash has nearly tripled over the past year alone.

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SoftBank CEO Takes Offensive on Sprint Deal

Mayumi Negishi, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Shalini Ramachandran — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:46:59 +0000

SoftBank Corp. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son launched a blistering attack on Dish Network Corp.’s competing bid for Sprint Nextel Corp., saying it would load the U.S. carrier with debt and delay its turnaround without providing any telecommunications expertise.

Dish’s assertion that its $25.5 billion offer presents a premium to SoftBank’s proposal is “totally wrong” and “incomplete and illusory,” he declared, in a 40-minute fusillade Tuesday aimed at winning over Sprint shareholders.

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Sony Raises Full-Year Profit View

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:00:10 +0000

Japanese electronics firm Sony Corp. said it doubled its profit outlook for the past business year ended March, aided by a weaker yen, asset sales and a rebounding stock market that helped its life insurance business.

Sony said it now expects a net profit of ¥40 billion ($400 million) for the past fiscal year versus a February estimate of ¥20 billion. It also raised its operating profit outlook to ¥230 billion from an earlier ¥130 billion, while lifting its sales estimate to ¥6.8 trillion from ¥6.6 trillion.

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Sharp Faces Dwindling Financing Options

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Atsuko Fukase — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:30:20 +0000

Japan’s Sharp Corp. is trying to find new sources of capital ahead of key looming financing deadlines. But the electronics maker’s options have shrunk, as management has told potential funders it doesn’t want to relinquish control of key decisions, while rebuffing demands from creditors that it shed core assets.

Complicating Sharp’s attempts to survive increasingly dire finances, two former presidents have joined current President Takashi Okuda in seeking to negotiate deals with different sets of possible investors, creating confusion among creditors and potential investors about who is in charge at a critical moment.

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Stringer to Leave as Sony Chairman

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 22:22:15 +0000

Howard Stringer, Sony Corp.’s former chief executive and current board chairman, plans to retire from the company in June, marking the end of a tumultuous tenure for the British-born executive at the helm of one of Japan’s most iconic companies.

In a speech to the Japan Society in New York, Mr. Stringer, who became Sony’s CEO in 2005 before stepping down last year and remained the company’s nonexecutive chairman, said he plans to retire from Sony at the end of his tenure to “move forward with new opportunities I’ve been presented with lately.”

The 71-year-old Mr. Stringer, a former head of CBS and an ex-journalist, didn’t specify what he planned to do aside from accepting board directorships in areas of interest to him in medicine and education.

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Sony Stakes Recovery on New Smartphone

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:10:42 +0000

TOKYO — When the head of NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s biggest mobile carrier, took the stage in January to introduce its latest models, he declared Sony Corp.’s new Xperia Z smartphone his company’s top pick, the equivalent of a mother announcing her favorite child.

For Sony, it was a much-needed vote of confidence for one of the company’s most important new products in recent memory. The Xperia Z, which went on sale in Japan on Feb. 9, is Sony’s first smartphone developed from the ground up by its engineers and designers since a pricey divorce from its mobile phone partner Ericsson last year.

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Next Sony PlayStation to Stream Games

Ian Sherr and Daisuke Wakabayashi — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:25:29 +0000

Sony is planning to offer technology to stream games to its next videogame console, people familiar with the company’s plans say, alongside other enhancements to bolster its position in the market.

The new technology, to be unveiled Wednesday along with the new console, will allow users to play games delivered over the Internet, these people said. The streaming service, they added, is designed to use current PlayStation 3 titles on the new console; the new device is also expected to play new games stored on optical discs.

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Sony Surprises Optimists With Loss

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:30:54 +0000

Sony Corp. posted an unexpected quarterly loss on Wednesday, demonstrating the depth of the problems facing its electronics business and deflating a sense of optimism that was reflected in a recent share-price rally.

While Sony said recent restructuring measures undertaken by Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai are starting to pay off, the company’s eighth-straight quarter in the red highlights the shifting landscape of consumer electronics, as smartphones encroach on traditional gadgets. It also heightens the importance for Sony to crack the smartphone duopoly of Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc.

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Sony to Unveil PS3 Successor

Ian Sherr and Daisuke Wakabayashi — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:54:32 +0000

Sony Corp. is planning to unveil its next-generation home videogame console during a February event, showing off a successor to its current PlayStation 3 system.

The Japanese electronics giant Thursday unveiled plans for a special PlayStation-themed event set for Feb. 20, teasing fans to “see the future” at the event. People familiar with the matter have said the new device will make its debut there, beating Microsoft Corp. the punch in announcing its own next-generation game machine.

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Nintendo Slashes Sales Outlook for Wii U

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:15:21 +0000

Nintendo Co. slashed its sales outlook for its Wii U, the company’s first new home console in six years and its attempt at recapturing the excitement over the original Wii, in an industry increasingly dominated by games on smartphones.

The revised sales view is the latest dose of bad news for Nintendo, coming off its first annual loss in more than three decades, after a sluggish start to its previous hardware launch, the Nintendo 3DS hand-held, pushed the company into an early price cut.

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Sony Sets Sights on Smartphone Market

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:30:41 +0000

Sony Corp. said it aims to establish itself as one of the world’s top-three smartphone manufacturers as part of its turnaround plan, but it doesn’t see the need to acquire another handset maker to solidify its position behind the industry’s two heavyweights, Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai said he sees the company as having the necessary assets to become a formidable third force in the fast-growing smartphone segment.

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For Sale in Japan: Electronics Assets

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Kana Inagaki — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 15:00:24 +0000

Panasonic Corp. said Friday it agreed to sell the digital-camera business it inherited in its 2009 acquisition of Sanyo Electric Co. to a Japanese private-equity firm. The deal is symbolic of how Japan’s struggling consumer-electronics companies are setting aside years of resistance to get serious about shedding nonessential assets and streamlining their sprawl of operations.

But this newfound pragmatism, necessitated by a sobering reality of multibillion-dollar losses in recent years and strained finances, may be hindered by a mismatch of what they are willing to sell and what potential buyers want.

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Sharp to Get Much-Needed Investment From Qualcomm

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:01:16 +0000

Sharp Corp. said it reached an agreement for Qualcomm Inc. to invest up to ¥9.9 billion ($120.4 million), in what is expected to be the first in a series of capital injections to shore up the Japanese electronics manufacturer’s finances.

The companies said Tuesday that they also will work together to develop displays using a new Sharp liquid-crystal-display technology and Qualcomm’s emerging low-power-display technology.

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Japan's Masayoshi Son Picks a Fight With U.S. Phone Giants

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Anton Troianovski — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 21:00:58 +0000

In Japan, Masayoshi Son is known as the eccentric Internet billionaire who upended the country’s telecom industry. In the U.S., he is about to become the cash-strapped underdog who picked a fight with two corporate giants — AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.

“It’s like the poor kids fighting against the rich kids,” Mr. Son said recently about the coming showdown. “Sometimes, the poor kids have more guts to fight the uphill battle.”

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At Sony, Share Slide Underscores Test for CEO

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:44:42 +0000

Sony Corp.’s stock price hit a 32-year low Thursday after falling nearly 9 percent, underscoring the test facing the company’s new chief executive, Kazuo Hirai.

The shares’ decline, along with threats of a possible debt downgrade to “junk” status, show the urgency for Mr. Hirai to deliver proof soon that the restructuring measures he engineered are taking hold and a revamped product lineup can reclaim its hit-making magic.

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Nintendo Slashes Profit Outlook

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:40:19 +0000

Nintendo Co. slashed its full-year profit outlook by 70 percent%, weighed down by weaker-than-expected demand for its 3DS handheld game machine, the strong yen, and manufacturing costs associated with the introduction of its first new home console in six years.

The Japanese videogame maker said Wednesday it now expects a net profit of ¥6 billion ($75.17 million) for its fiscal year to March from an earlier projection for a ¥20 billion profit. It also reduced its full-year revenue outlook to ¥810 billion from a previous target of ¥820 billion.

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Softbank in Advanced Talks to Acquire Sprint Nextel

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:17:32 +0000

Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Corp. is in advanced talks to buy U.S. operator Sprint Nextel Corp. in a deal expected to exceed ¥1 trillion ($12.81 billion) in value, a person with knowledge of the negotiations said Thursday.

The acquisition, if agreed upon, will mark a massive gamble by Softbank, the country’s third-largest carrier by subscribers, to expand its business outside of Japan. Softbank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has made big bets in the past including acquiring the Japanese arm of Vodafone Group PLC in 2006. It paid for the deal through a leveraged buyout, which vaulted the company in the mobile phone business.

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Sony Mobile to Cut 1,000 Jobs

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:30:36 +0000

Sony Corp. said Thursday it plans to cut some 15 percent of its mobile phone business’s workforce, or about 1,000 jobs, to reduce costs and accelerate its push into the growing smartphone market.

The job cut comes after Sony took full control of its mobile phone joint venture with Sweden’s Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson earlier this year.

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Sony Loss Widens

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:35:26 +0000

Sony Corp. reported a wider loss in its fiscal first quarter as restructuring costs, the strong yen and a large dip in sales in its home entertainment and sound segment weighed on its bottom line.

Sony said it posted a net loss of ¥24.64 billion ($314 million) in the three months to June 30, compared with a loss of ¥15.50 billion a year earlier. Operating profit was down 77 percent, to ¥6.28 billion from ¥27.5 billion. Both figures were far worse than the average forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who expected a net loss of ¥1.23 billion and an operating profit of ¥17.57 billion. Revenue was up 1.4 percent to ¥1.515 trillion.

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Panasonic Returns to Profit

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:32:08 +0000

On the heels of recording its largest-ever annual loss, Panasonic Corp. said Tuesday that it returned to profit in the first quarter, boosted by cost cuts that helped stem the bleeding of red ink at its flat-panel television business.

The profit boost, which beat analysts’ expectations, comes as Osaka-based Panasonic is in the midst of shifting the focus of its business from low-margin consumer electronics products such as televisions to more industrial goods such as solar panels and rechargeable batteries for automobiles.

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Heated Turf War Erupts in Mobile Videogames

Daisuke Wakabayashi — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:16:19 +0000

A platform war is under way in the videogame industry and, for once, it has nothing to do with Nintendo Co., Microsoft Corp. or Sony Corp.

This time, the battle is taking place on smartphones with names like Gree Inc. and DeNA Co. — a pair of Japanese firms little known in the rest of the world, despite being the two most profitable companies in the hottest segment of the videogame industry. They are taking on U.S. social-videogame leader Zynga, and potentially Apple Inc. and Google Inc., for control.

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