Sony Corp on Friday launched new versions of its Vaios personal computers for the Japan market and said it was sticking to this year"s PC shipment targets, which were set in April, despite recent profit warnings.
Keiji Kimura, president of Sony"s mobile network company, said the company aimed to ship 3.9 million PCs worldwide in the current business year to next March, including 2.1 million overseas, compared with global shipments of 2.5 million last year.
He added that the downturn in the PC market, with Japanese market data in recent weeks showing even once-hot retail sales of notebook PCs edging below year-ago levels, was likely to be a temporary phenomenon.
"The demand is definitely out there,"" he said. "We"re looking for it to come back to life.""
Such optimism contrasted with a profit warning by the company late last month, when it cut its consolidated operating profit forecast for 2001/02 by more than half to 120 billion yen ($988 million). That followed an earlier revision in July.
Sony, the top-selling notebook PC maker in Japan according to retail sales data from Nikkei Market Access, also unveiled its latest Vaios for Japan, which include added wireless data features and Microsoft Corp"s new Windows XP operating system.