Sony to slash 10,000 jobs amid major organisational shake up

Sony has announced it will be cutting six per cent of its global workforce in a bid to reverse its ailing financial fortunes.

The company confirmed its plans to cut 10,000 jobs by the year's end, explaining the reductions would include staff in businesses currently being sold, such as its chemical division.

Sony stated the reorganisation, which will cost it £581m this financial year, will allow it to refocus its efforts on digital imaging, games consoles and mobile devices.

The company's TV department is also confirmed for a major reshuffle with the company hoping to cut costs in the business by 60 per cent to make up for its reported £6.3bn loss over the last decade.

The changes are designed to allow Sony to generate sales of £6.6bn by the financial year ending in March 2015, with a profit margin of five per cent.

Speaking to V3, Gartner analyst Paul O'Donovan said the changes come as little surprise and underline the key issues Sony has to address.

"Sony lost a lot of market share across a number of its core markets such as portable audio, TVs and game consoles for lots of different reasons," he said.

"This was its real major problem. Too many businesses, too many global issues and a fixation on trying to keep its profits as high as it could, regardless of losing market share against cheaper competitors that were, and still are, offering pretty much the same or even better quality products than Sony."

The news follows the company's statement to investors on Tuesday that it has increased its loss forecasts for the last financial year to £4bn, double its previous £1.7bn February forecast.

Sony's full annual results are due for release on 21 May, at the time of publishing Sony has not responded to V3's requests for comment on the cuts.