Top Sony exec to skip bonuses and cut wages as fourth annual loss nears

Sony is expected to report its fourth annual loss in succession tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal reports that as a result chief executive Kazuo Hirai and some of the company’s other top bosses are to forgo their bonuses and take a 50 per cent cut in pay.

All of which comes despite the tremendous success of PS4, which as of last month had sold 7m units across the world.

Regardless, even if Sony hits its 20m PlayStation hardware unit sales for the fiscal year that’s still 45 per cent below what the brand was achieving at its peak.

In 2002 global PlayStation console shipments hit 22m. This fell to around 19m in 2004 before climbing to 36m in 2007. Since then it’s been in steady decline.

Sony earlier this year said it would sell off its Vaio PC business. Hirai also said it was targeting third position in the smartphone market behind Samsung and Apple. Last year it achieved sixth place with a global market share of just 3.8 per cent.

"Mr Hirai delivers outward messages that are positive,” former Sony engineer Shingo Tamura said. But there is still the image that products that don’t make money are dumped, while there is no longer-term vision for what kind of a new lifestyle Sony wants to create.”