Sony Corp., which is predicting its fourth year in a row of losses, has announced that it has selected a new chief executive officer who will replace Howard Stringer, reports Bloomberg.
The job will go to Kazuo Hirai, the story reports. Hirai, 51, will take on the CEO job beginning April 1, while Stringer will become chairman of the board after a shareholders meeting in June, the piece says.
Hirai is among four executives Stringer was grooming to be his successor and the only one who isn’t an engineer. Instead, he has background in the music and gaming industry, the story adds.
The executive change comes after Sony’s stock slid by more than half last year, and the company lost ground to Apple’s iPod and failed to compete with Samsung in TVs and with Nintendo in game consoles, the piece points out.
Unfortunately, I have just had a terrible expereince with Sony. My husband and I saved money to purchase a Sony Bravia 46″ LCD TV on March 31, 2008. We purchased it 1899.00 which was a lot of money for us. About 1 year ago, we noticed a blue line on the side of the TV about 4 inches from the edge. Today (4/18/2012) we turned on the TV to notice that the picture consists of a green screen. In discussing the issue with Sony’s “wonderful” consumer service reps, we were given the “We can connect you with a service rep, but that is all we can help you with.” What I have learned from this expereince is that if Sony make a product and sells it for close to 2000.00 and that product only lasts for roughly 3-4 years without issue…I know that I will never buy a Sony product again and will tell everyone I know why! No wonder they are reporting loses! Go figure!