Sony to cut plants and 8,000 jobs per BBC

[alphaomega]

Picked up from the BBC News Web site this morning:

Sony to cut plants and 8,000 jobs
Sony currently has 57 manufacturing sites
Sony has announced plans to cut 8,000 electronics jobs - 5% of the division - as well as shutting 10% of its manufacturing sites.
The company said the jobs would be cut by April 2010 but did not say in which countries the staff would go.
Sony said it had been trying to reduce production because of the downturn but warned it still had to do more.
The news came as Japan drastically raised its estimate of the amount its economy shrank from July to September.
The Cabinet Office said the economy had shrunk at an annual rate of 1.8% in the quarter, down from its previous estimate of 0.4%.
Sony aims to generate cost savings of about 100bn yen ($1.1bn; £730m) by the end of the next financial year.
It will cut its investment in electronic operations by 30% and shut down about 10% of its 57 production facilities.
"The number sounds big, but this staff reduction won't be enough," said Katsuhiko Mori, a fund manager at Daiwa SB Investments.
"Sony doesn't have any core businesses that generate stable profits - the next thing we want to see is what is going to be the business that will drive the company."

It will be interesting to see to what extent these planned cuts in plants, jobs and investments will affect the Alpha DSLR division.

[bfitzgerald]

Well electronics means a whole lot of things. Probably won't have a major impact on the DSLR business, but I would expect production to be reduced in some areas. Maybe the compact market has died down a lot, after all..only so many of those you can keep selling to folks.

I would expect just about all the major electronics makers to cut back on production, it's par for the course in this current climate.

Maybe now we can get back to normal photographic life cycles, I think it's been crazy for years..upgraded models etc etc, has to slow down at some point.

[Javelin]

The news here named the LCD manufacturing in particular absorbing most of this. and also they are eliminating the magnetic tape production. along with this there are also 8k contract workers and kits in the media division too.

[picman]

Actually it is 16.000 not 8.000. 8.000 workers under contract and another 8.000 not under contract (temporary) are being laid off. Also Sony apparently has announced it will be cutting off non-profitable parts of their business. Should we fear for the survival of the Alpha line? I would like to hear your views.

Cheers, Bob.

[Dr. Harout]

I think the Alpha is doing quite fine. Getting at the 3rd place in just 3 years in DSLR market says a lot of things.

[InTheSky]

For now ... this is less than what append in the past when i was working at Nortel Networks. Where only in a few month they have cut more than 30k of my coworkers.

The time is hard again, and i think we should be prepare for worst than this.

Anybody know how many people are working for Sony ?

Regards,

Frank

[alphaomega]

Picman wrote

Should we fear for the survival of the Alpha line? I would like to hear your views.

You can purchase a Sony KDL-32V4000 - 32" Widescreen HD Ready Bravia LCD TV - With Freeview from Amazon here in UK for Pounds 379 with free delivery. A Sony Alpha A350 with 18-70 kit lens costs £399 from Park Cameras. Now compare a 32" LCT TV with the A350 & kit lens for materials transport and labour costs and I would assume that Sony will make some money on the A350. The same thinking probably applies to the rest of the line as well as to Canon and Nikon as all three now command good market shares.

As the DSLR division is small within Sony and probably makes money I would think it is safe from oblivion or drastic reduction. There may be a delay in introducing new products as the DSLR division may suffer a reduction in funds for product development.

[Javelin]

well most of this is LCD production and getting out of the magnetic media. one of them is never going to be profitable if people stop adopting the other has deciled so far it was probably going to be eliminated anyway. They've also said that instead of adding planned sensor production capacity for cell phones that they will be contracting that out to another manufacturer. I think everything so far indicates that Alpha is being left alone.