Sony to quit Vaio PC business

Sony has announced that it is to sell its Vaio PC business, lay off 5,000 staff as part of major restructuring plans and cut its costs by one third over the next 15 months before the start of its 2015 financial year.

Sony also plans to to spin its TV Brand into a wholly-owned subsidiary by July 2014. Sony has cut the division’s losses significantly  a 147.5 billion yen loss for financial year 2011 was cut to
a 69.6 billion loss one year later.

The layoffs will affect 1,500 staff in Japan and a further 3,500 overseas. A mixture of redundancies, early retirement and potential transfers to new companies will be offered to those selected within manufacturing, sales and administration in its TV and PC businesses.

There has been much speculation about the future of Sony’s Vaio business, so it comes as little surprise that the unit is being sold. The loss-making division is being bought by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), the Japanese fund that was strongly linked with a deal this weekend (it was also suggested that Lenovo had been interested.) Under JIP’s leadership, the new company will focus on the local Japanese market, “while evaluating possible further geographic expansion.”

Sony has long made it clear that it was reviewing the future of its PC business, and it singled out a number of factors including “the drastic changes in the global PC industry”  behind its decision. The company anticipates that the JIT deal will be completed by March 2014  which means the products it launches this Spring will be its last Vaio devices, though it will continue to offer assistance to customers beyond the completion of the sale.

Techpalace