Embattled Japanese technology maker Sony has cut its sales expectations for cameras, smartphones and tablets for fiscal year 2014-2015.
Reducing targets in smartphones and tablets from 1.8tn yen (£11.5bn) to 1.5tn yen (£9.6bn) and cameras from 1.5tn yen to 1.3tn yen (£8.3bn), it seems Sony is expecting a rough year in its traditionally successful hardware areas.
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Though the company expects smartphone sales to rise across the industry by 42 million units in the current fiscal year, it is increasingly battling with Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE to stay competitive as the market hots up.
The company is currently competing with LG for third place in the global smartphone market.
However, Sony did recently announce a £280m overall profit for the year ending 31 March, a major internal restructuring project being a major contributing factor.
The company also enjoyed some good news yesterday, as rival games console maker Microsoft's unveiling of its new Xbox One console set Sony stock value soaring by nine per cent.
As far as cameras go, the global market remains under constant threat from smartphones equipped with increasingly powerful built-in photography tech. In Sony's case, this means many of its smartphones are at risk of competing with its own photography range.
Olympus announced only two weeks ago that it expects a 47 per cent drop in camera sales from only a year ago, meaning it expects to sell only 2.7 million cameras this fiscal year.
Entrepreneur Peter Jones purchased ailing UK camera shop chain Jessops earlier this year, and some of its 187 stores have now begun reopening with a scaled-down business plan.
