Signs Of Intelligent Life At Sony: Earnings Helped By Financial Unit

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

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After five quarters of losses, Sony (SNE) has finally turned a profit.

The news is not terribly impressive since it is the conglomerate’s financial and insurance divisions that pushed the company into the black. The usually mindless practice of corporate cost cuts and lay-offs so prevalent at troubled companies also helped.

Sony’s earnings benefitted modestly as TV screen sales ticked up .

There is still little evidence is the Sony numbers that the company is gaining any ground against competition in the digital camera and game console business. Sony’s studio operation figures were not as impressive as News Corp’s which were lifted by “Avatar”, but they were at least presentable.

Sony may simply want to move out of entertainment and electronics. Its best future may be as a financial services and currency hedging company.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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