The announcement came after Sony in September downgraded its annual earnings outlook, revealing that it would lose a whopping 230 billion yen in the year to March, more than four times its earlier forecast.
Sony said yesterday its net loss for the April-September period ballooned to nearly USD 1.0 billion, as the embattled electronics firm continues to struggle in the cut-throat smartphone business.
The firm said its net loss came in at 109.1 billion yen, way up from a 16.5 billion yen shortfall in the same period last year.
The company also said it would cut the smartphone unit's global staff by 15 per cent (about 1,000 jobs) and not pay dividends for the first time since its shares started trading in Tokyo in 1958.
The smartphone business, Sony said, has been hit by weaker than expected results in emerging markets, as it battles global rivals including Samsung and Apple.
By contrast, domestic rival Sharp said today that it saw a small profit in the first half of its fiscal year and forecast it will stay in the black for the next six months as it tries to overcome years of record losses.
But Sharp, a key Apple supplier and leader in screens for smartphones and tablets admitted its sales slipped 1.1 per cent to 1.32 trillion yen, while operating profit was down 13.6 per cent from a year ago.
The latest net profit figure was largely due to a one-time gain rather than a significant uptick in the firm's business, Sharp said.
"We also pursued management improvement on a company-wide basis, including an inventory optimisation, radical cuts in total costs and structural reform in Europe", it said in a statement.