Sony may struggle to meet target

Sony Corp, the world's second-largest consumer electronics maker, may miss its target for liquid-crystal-display television sales on lower-than-expected revenue in North America and Europe, the company's president said.

The company's 16 million units target for the 12 months ending March is "tough to reach", President Ryoji Chubachi said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday. "We characterize the environment for our year-end sales as severe."

Confidence among US consumers unexpectedly dropped in December to a record low on growing anxiety over the lack of jobs and UK consumer confidence fell to the lowest since at least 2004. Tokyo-based Sony said last month a "much" larger-than-anticipated deterioration in the economy spurred it to cut thousands of jobs, curb investments and might cause it to revise its profit targets.