SONY -- cutting losing divisions - investing heavily in partnership with MicroVision

"Sony is VERY bullish on our technology."

When a company is mercilessly cutting losing divisions, yet investing 33 million directly with MicroVision -- which is a small part of what they're doing in-house, you know they are dedicated to this technology, and expect it to be a significant winner.

These are very outstanding forecasts (which they call "conservative") from SONY. I expect it is unlikely that they can increase their devices income so significantly without adding a NEW kind of device to their product line up.

This morning's call MicroVision mentioned SONY many times openly. It is my opinion that we hear of a product release from SONY sooner, rather than later.

MicroVision and SONY have an eight year partnership contract on this technology -- until 2023!!

Full Article at BloombergBusiness

Kazuo Hirai, leading Sony Corp. on a comeback after years of losses, is giving himself plenty of room to deliver more good news in the future.

The chief executive officer says operating profit will more than quadruple to 320 billion yen ($2.7 billion) this fiscal year. That forecast given Thursday is about 20 percent less than analysts projected as Sony tries to shake its years-long reputation for disappointing investors.

Hirai is cutting costs and focusing on profitability in businesses where Sony has an advantage. That approach, coupled with Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida’s emphasis on accountability, has helped boost the stock 103 percent in the past year.

“We have revised our forecasts down 15 times in the past seven years, and that’s not something we want to repeat,” Yoshida said in Tokyo. “The profit forecast takes into account a considerable risk from foreign exchange fluctuations.”

Sony forecast a 17 percent surge in revenue from devices, the unit that makes image sensors, and a 16 percent increase in the pictures division. New releases this year include “Spectre,” the latest installment in the James Bond franchise.

The earnings revival comes after Hirai sold Sony’s personal-computer business, pruned its smartphone lineup and placed the TV manufacturing business into a separate structure to boost performance after years of losses. It also started selling the PlayStation 4 console in China to tap the world’s biggest game market.

Smartphone Revamp

“The target of operating profit is conservative,” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute in Tokyo. “Investors expected too much so Sony is trying to lower their expectations.”

Sony stopped developing new smartphones for China and culled the Xperia lineup as it struggled to compete with Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Chinese vendors. The company took a 180 billion-yen charge in the business last fiscal year.

The company boosted investment in semiconductors by 150 billion yen this year to tap surging demand for the sensors that power cameras in Apple and Samsung smartphones. It’s also shifting 220 employees involved in developing and producing chips for gaming consoles to the sensor business and other operations.