That was in 2006 . Sony launched in the U.S. its reading light e-reader and its online store Reader Store to download digital books . It was a year before the outbreak of Amazon and its Kindle tablet digital ink.
The Japanese group was visionary. The U.S. market for digital books is indeed now the largest in the world. In the United States, more than 20% of turnover comes from digital publishing .
Despite these favorable conditions , Sony announced Thursday, Feb. 6 , closing the Reader Store and transfer its customers to the Canadian group Kobo .
How consumer-electronics group has large he could miss the boat and end up marginalized on the market that had opened ? This is in fact already the subject really .
For this failure does not weigh much in view of the difficulties faced by Sony . But it is remarkable insofar as , contrary to what seems to be the culture of this giant of some 150 000 employees , the problem was quickly treated .
This reactivity is probably one of the qualities most sorely lacking in the Japanese giant . As its CEO, Kazuo Hirai, launched Thursday for the second time in four months , a significant warning on earnings forecasts of the group, also announced it was cutting two diseased branches .
That lost time :
It will first sell its Vaio PCs at a Japanese investment fund. Become ninth largest manufacturer with 1.9 % of a declining market , this department was lost and uncertain future.
And Mr. Hirai, arrived there two years as head of the group, announced the spin-off of the manufacture and sale of televisions . No question of an assignment for the moment, but this separation of accounts , functional and legal , lets consider .
The inventor of the cathode ray tube Trinitron color television in 1968 thus solves a painful revision. But lost time !
It has been ten years since this activity loses money . It has been ten years since the band promises every year that recovery is at hand . In total, he has accumulated 787 billion yen ( 5.7 billion euros ) in losses on this single trade. Yet it is the third largest television screens .
These decisions sale or cantonment appear wise . But they reveal the excitement of a group at bay. In January, Moody 's had stored the quality of Sony 's debt to the status of junk bonds because of the difficulties of the group to restate its PC and TV industries .
The success of the PlayStation 4 console , launched in November 2013 , and the range of Xperia smartphones and tablets are not sufficient to compensate for this strategic languor .
Sony will fall into the red with an expected loss of 110 billion yen ( 800 million euros) in its accounts 2013/2014 ended March 31. He had to head out of the water in 2012-2013 , its first profitable year in five years.
