Sony nine-month net profit falls 81%, downgrades forecast

Sony said Thursday its nine-month net profit to December fell 80.7 percent largely on a strong yen and a nearly $1 billion writedown in its movie business.

The Japanese electronics giant, which has been shedding assets as part of a broad restructuring, said it had 45.6 billion yen ($405 million) net profit for the April-December period, compared with 236.1 billion yen seen the year before.

Sony also said it lowered its annual net profit forecast to 26 billion yen, down sharply from an earlier projection of 60 billion yen.

Operating profit for the three quarters dropped 49.8 percent to 194.3 billion yen, while sales lost 9.3 percent to 5.69 trillion yen, the company said.

The revenue drop was "mainly due to the impact of foreign exchange rates", Sony said, adding that the yen rose 14.1 percent against the dollar and 13.8 percent against the euro during the period from the year earlier.

Operating profit was hit by the $962 million writedown recorded in its movie business, as announced earlier this week.

Sony also cited losses linked to the sale of its battery business as a factor driving down its operating profit.

Sony's mobile communications business continued to struggle, while its memory chip and components segments were also pressured by the impact of currency fluctuations, the company said.