BlackBerry Posts Huge Loss

Nathan Denette/CP, via Associated PressBlackBerry introduced the Z10 model earlier this year in Toronto. The company said it was stepping back from its handset business.

OTTAWA — BlackBerry reported a $4.4 billion loss and a 56 percent drop in revenue for its fiscal third quarter on Friday and said it would step back from its once-core handset business through a partnership with the Asian contract manufacturer Foxconn.

Chen on BlackBerry’s Turnaround Prospect The company's stock price over the last five years.News from the technology industry, including start-ups, the Internet, enterprise and gadgets.
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The dismal financial news followed the failure of BlackBerry to find a buyer for the company last month and the replacement of Thorsten Heins, the chief executive, with John S. Chen, the former chairman of Sybase. Mr. Chen has since fired several high-level executives at the company.

The substantial loss, which follows one of nearly $1 billion in the second quarter, again reflected the failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones, which were portrayed as a lifesaver for the company when introduced earlier this year. The third-quarter loss included a $2.7 billion write-down mainly related to BlackBerry 10 phones. Of the 4.3 million BlackBerrys purchased by consumers and businesses during the quarter, 3.2 million were models that use the obsolete BlackBerry 7 operating system.

The company’s $1.2 billion in revenue compared with $2.7 billion in the same period a year ago and represented a 24 percent drop from the previous quarter.

BlackBerry, like other many other hardware companies including Apple, has long relied on Foxconn to manufacture phones. But the new partnership appears to take the relationship to a new level.

The arrangement seems to be a way for BlackBerry to effectively hand over some of its handset business without running afoul of Canadian foreign investment laws. The government of Canada has made it clear that for national security reasons it would not allow the sale of BlackBerry or any significant portion of the company to any Chinese firm or a company with extensive Chinese operations, as is the case with Foxconn which which headquartered in Taiwan.

BlackBerry said that it would jointly develop and manufacture some phones with Foxconn in the future, including a new model aimed at the Indonesian market, and that Foxconn “will manage the inventory of those devices.” BlackBerry said that it will control all of the “intellectual property” in phones created through the partnership.

As he has suggested previously, Mr. Chen said that as the company slowly steps out of the handset business, it will focus its energies on its BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging service; software that allows companies to manage and control smartphones used by their employees; and developing mobile data products for automobile manufacturers and mobile security.

“With the operational and organizational changes we have announced, BlackBerry has established a clear road map that will allow it to target a return to improved financial performance in the coming year,” Mr. Chen, who is also executive chairman, said in a statement.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 20, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the description of Foxconn, the contract manufacturer. It is headquartered in Taiwan, not China.

BlackBerry Posts Huge Loss on Write-Down and Charges

The stock rose as much as 17 percent after the company announced the five-year partnership with Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, which will initially build low-end devices for sale in Indonesia and other emerging markets. BlackBerry said it hoped to expand the fledgling relationship to its top-of-the-line smartphones.

The deal is unconventional in that BlackBerry will no longer pay upfront for components used in the devices made on its behalf in Foxconn's Indonesian and Mexican factories.

Instead, Foxconn will take a share of profit on each device in return for taking on inventory management, which can result in writedowns if smartphones go unsold. Foxconn will also help with developing, designing and distributing the handsets.

Chief Executive John Chen, who took the helm at BlackBerry last month, said he expected the Foxconn deal to help BlackBerry's handset business turn cash-flow positive, and for the company as a whole to post a profit for the fiscal year that begins in early 2015.

"It's almost like BlackBerry is disposing of its consumer handset business without actually disposing of it," said Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who likened the deal to what Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell have done with laptops.

The move, which comes a month after BlackBerry said it was giving up on a plan to sell itself, helped take the sting out of the massive, $4.4 billion loss that it posted for the quarter ended November 30, as smartphone sales shriveled.

A new line of devices running on BlackBerry 10 software has failed to gain traction, forcing the company to write off $1.6 billion of inventory and supply commitments for the quarter. The previous quarter it wrote off $934 million for unsold phones.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company pioneered the concept of on-the-go email, and for years its pagers and phones were must-have devices for political and business leaders. But in recent years it has lost its once-dominant market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and a slew of smartphones powered by Google Inc's Android operating system.

As of Thursday's close, the stock had fallen 47 percent this year. It was last trading up 14 percent on Nasdaq at $7.13.

"The most immediate challenge for the company is how to transition the devices operations to a more profitable business model," said Chen, who is credited with turning around Sybase, a database and mobile software company, before it was sold to German software company SAP AG in 2010.

Chen has said he is counting on strong growth in BlackBerry's service business, which manages smartphone traffic on the internal networks of corporate and government clients.

"Just jettisoning all the stuff and driving on with the part of the business that makes money makes a heck of a lot of sense to me and that is very clearly where Chen is going," said Ross Healy, a portfolio manager at Macnicol & Associates who owns a small number of BlackBerry shares.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Kantar Comtech, said the deal is a good move for Foxconn, the world's largest electronic parts manufacturer and a major partner of Apple Inc.

"This might be the first step for them to try and diversify, and experiment with putting their brand on the products they make," she said.

DEVICES ARE A CHALLENGE

In his first presentation to analysts after the release of BlackBerry's results, Chen struck an upbeat tone tempered with a heavy dose of realism. The mix may have helped soothe nervous investors who had sharply lowered their expectations for BlackBerry after a string of disappointing news.

"It's clear that he's not the old guard, he's not there trying to do what Lazaridis and Thorsten were up to. He's actually been taking some concrete steps," said Mark McKechnie, an analyst at Evercore Partners, referring to BlackBerry's founder Mike Lazaridis and Thorsten Heins, Chen's predecessor.

Sony Posts Loss, Hurt by Box Office Flop

Sony cited the box office flop of the movie “White House Down” as a crucial reason for the weakness in the studio division, which also struggled with an unfavorable comparison against the comparable period a year earlier, when sales were lifted by “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

The problems in Sony’s movie unit contributed to a net loss of 19.3 billion yen, or $197 million, in the most recent quarter, which ended Sept. 30. A year earlier, Sony posted a loss of 15.5 billion yen.

While Sony was expected to post weak results in the most recent period, the company surprised analysts by downgrading its outlook for the full fiscal year, which ends in the spring. The company said it now expected operating earnings of ¥170 billion, down from a previous forecast of ¥230 billion.

Investors have been looking for an increase in sales from the Sony PlayStation 4 game console, which is scheduled to go on sale in the United States and Europe this month.

“This set of results does remind that Sony without the PS4 or Xperia smartphones is still faced with a difficult situation profitwise,” said Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie Capital Securities.

In Sony’s fiscal first quarter, which ended June 30, the company surprised investors on the upside, as strong sales of smartphones bolstered its results. The mobile division did well in the most recent quarter, too, showing a sales increase of 39 percent, helped by the weakness of the yen.

But the motion picture division did poorly. The company was also hurt by lower revenue from television licensing and home entertainment businesses.

Sony’s Hollywood division has been the focus of Daniel Loeb, an investor whose hedge fund company, Third Point, owns a 6.5 percent stake in Sony. Mr. Loeb, in a letter to Sony management in May, complained about what he described as lax financial controls at Sony Pictures.

Sony’s board has rejected Mr. Loeb’s proposal for a partial spinoff of the company’s entertainment arm. Sony has scheduled a Sony Entertainment investor day for Nov. 21 at the studio’s headquarters in Culver City, Calif., following up on a commitment to Mr. Loeb by Kazuo Hirai, the Sony chief executive, for more transparency about the unit’s operations.

Before the recent downturn in the entertainment division’s results, investors focused their attention on the electronics business. The weakness in electronics persisted in the most recent quarter, when television sales were weaker than expected. While a weak yen has generally helped Sony, the company said a recent decline in the value of some developing countries’ currencies had, in turn, contributed to the weakness in TVs.

Mr. Hirai has made a turnaround in electronics a priority since he became chief executive last year, with smartphones featuring prominently in his plans. A new model, the Xperia X1, “has caused quite a stir globally,” Yoshinori Hashitani, vice president of investor relations, said in a conference call.

In the most recent quarter, Sony posted overall sales of ¥1.78 trillion, up from ¥1.6 trillion a year earlier, but the results were helped by the weakness of the yen, which increases the value of repatriated earnings from exports. In constant currency terms, sales fell 9 percent from a year earlier, Sony said.

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Cisco Plans to Cut 4,000 Jobs, as It Posts Profit Gain

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AOL Posts Higher Revenue and Buys Company

In line with its ambitions to become a platform for live broadcasting and programming, the company also said that it had acquired Adap.tv, a video advertising company that allows purchases across the Internet and on television. The cost was $405 million.

Under the terms of the deal, AOL will pay $322 million in cash and about $83 million in stock. That is more than the $315 million it paid for The Huffington Post two and a half years ago and thus is its biggest acquisition since becoming an independent company.

Video, with its ability to command higher advertising rates, has been one of the biggest points of focus for Internet media companies for some time. AOL has been seeking to amass sources of video content as part of its bet that consumers will increasingly watch video online instead of on television.

“AOL is a leader in online video, and the combination of AOL and Adap.tv will create the leading video platform in the industry,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “The Adap.tv founders and team are on a mission to make advertising as easy as e-commerce, and the two companies together will aggressively pursue that vision.”

AOL executives added in a phone interview that the acquisition was not as much about promoting their own content as it was about diversifying the company’s earnings into a revenue stream — the infrastructure for ad purchasing for online video — that it thinks has tremendous potential.

In addition to the Adap.tv sale, AOL trumpeted the fact that its ad sales were up 5 percent. However, that growth was tepid compared to overall digital ad spending in the United States. That spending grew by 14.8 percent, to $10.01 billion, in the second quarter of 2013 compared with the same period last year, according to Emarketer, an online advertising research firm.

Despite positive growth in advertising and traffic, up 3 percent year over year, the earnings revealed the company’s continued dependence on revenue from subscriptions to the AOL portal, a declining business. Looking at adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization, or income earned from regular operations, the membership business was a net positive at $151.6 million, but still down 4 percent year over year.

Wall Street’s reaction was mixed, and AOL’s stock rose 1.4 percent, to $36.69 at the close of trading. Analysts were pleased that AOL seemed to be cutting losses. The brand groups, for example, cut losses from $15.2 million for the quarter a year earlier to $1.4 million this last quarter. Though losses increased in this area for AOL networks, Mr. Armstrong said that was because the company was in “investment mode.”

But many worried about whether AOL paid too much for the Adap.tv purchase, which will be completed in September.

Adap.tv, founded in 2007, counts Spark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds among its investors.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 7, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the quarterly revenue for AOL. It was $541 million, not $361 million, for an increase of 2 percent, not 7 percent. The error was repeated in an earlier version of the headline.

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Signs of Rebound as Sony Posts a $35 Million Profit

Sony of Japan posted net income of 3.5 billion yen ($35 million) in the quarter that ended June 30, after a loss of 24.6 billion yen in the period a year earlier. The results were helped by a weaker yen and increased sales of smartphones. Revenue increased 13 percent, to $17.3 billion.

Company executives did not comment on a report in the Nikkei business newspaper that Sony was “leaning toward” rejecting the breakup proposal from Daniel S. Loeb, a New York hedge fund manager whose firm, Third Point, holds a 7 percent stake in Sony. Mr. Loeb wants the company to separate the entertainment unit from the electronics and financial divisions by selling stock in the unit and giving it its own board.

“We are going to discuss this carefully and then come to a solid conclusion,” Masaru Kato, Sony’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts.

“Improving the profitability of electronics is the biggest priority of Mr. Hirai,” he added, referring to the chief executive, Kazuo Hirai. “At the same time, entertainment and financial services remain core parts of the business.”

Mr. Loeb stepped up his campaign for a breakup this week in a letter to Third Point investors in which he attacked Sony management over the weak performance of Sony’s Hollywood studio business. That unit has been hurt by poor box-office receipts for recent films like “After Earth” and “White House Down.”

In his letter, Mr. Loeb compared those films to the notorious Hollywood flops “Ishtar” and “Waterworld,” and added that the studio business was “characterized by a complete lack of accountability and poor financial controls.”

Sony confirmed the weak performance of the studio business in the quarter, saying sales had fallen 16 percent in constant currency terms.

Later in the day, in Hollywood, the company announced a significant and surprising move in its film operation, saying it would revive its semidormant TriStar unit as a movie and television venture in partnership with Thomas E. Rothman, who this year stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

The new venture promises to bring back a film and television label that until the late 1990s was operated as a fully staffed studio, run in parallel with the Columbia Pictures unit of Sony. Its peak moments included the successes of “Jerry Maguire” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

Mr. Rothman, who expressed support for Sony’s managers, declined to say how much Sony would invest in the studio. He and company executives said Sony was expected to make four films a year, and to split its activities evenly between television and film. Mr. Rothman said he would have an equity stake in the venture and was open to outside investment, though he expected to begin with Sony’s money.

In a statement, Sony Pictures Entertainment said Mr. Rothman would report to Michael Lynton, who is chief executive of that unit, and Amy Pascal, a chairwoman.

Speaking separately on Thursday, Ms. Pascal and Mr. Rothman said negotiations for the TriStar venture, which will be called TriStar Productions, began well in advance of the first round of criticism by Mr. Loeb.

Ms. Pascal said early conversations with Mr. Rothman had centered on a venture that might provide the smaller, artier films for which Mr. Rothman became known when he years ago started Fox Searchlight for the News Corporation and its 20th Century Fox unit. Ultimately, she said, the partnership was drafted to allow for more scope. “We want to make movies that make money,” she said.

In Sony’s earnings report, its electronics business showed clear signs of a turnaround.

Although sales of video cameras and compact digital cameras have been caught up in an industrywide slide, Sony reported a “significant increase” in quarterly sales of smartphones, to 9.6 million from 7.4 million in the period a year earlier. Sony said average selling prices had risen as well, helping the mobile division post a profit of $60 million, after a loss of $28.1 million in the year-ago period.

Although analysts have questioned the value of retaining the broad array of product lines in which the company competes, they said the improved outlook had bolstered the position of Mr. Hirai as he tries to persuade investors of the merits of keeping the company intact.

“It’s very clear that the company is focused on fixing electronics, and these results show that the strategy seems to be working,” said Damian Thong, an analyst at Macquarie Securities.

Eric Pfanner reported from Tokyo and Michael Cieply from Los Angeles.

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Pogue’s Posts Blog: What Readers Found in Facebook’s ‘Other’ Folder

A couple of days ago, I wrote this post about the hidden “Other” folder on Facebook. This secret folder contains all messages sent to you by anybody who’s not among your Facebook friends. Because you’ve probably never looked in there, it might contain really important messages that you’ve never seen.

Hundreds of you wrote to report what you found in there. Some found nothing there. Some found only spam. Some found awkwardly written mash notes: “They were all men who wanted to get to know me and commented on my looks,” wrote one reader.

In all of those cases, the Other folder is doing its job.

But many more of you wrote that, sure enough, your Other folder contained important, now outdated messages, some with sad results:

• “Notification of the death of a friend was hidden in my Other box. I had been very hurt at not being told, and actually missed her funeral.

• “Thank you, David. I will never be able to say that enough. Our son died very unexpectedly on New Year’s Eve past (http://MackBrady.com), and thanks to your note, I am just now seeing dozens and dozens of kind and wonderful messages of sympathy and support.”

• “I learned of the death of a former, valued colleague two months ago.”

A number of you discovered, too late, that you’d won prizes or jobs:

• “Shoot, I just discovered I had won a contest for Knicks tickets, but the message was in that ‘Other’ folder. It was from 2011. Grrrr!”

• “Damn, I discovered that a year ago, I won free tickets to the theater and I never knew.”

• “I just checked my ‘Other’ folder and found out that I won a free high-end kitchen faucet for a contest I entered last year. Rats.”

• “Just looked at my ‘Other’ messages and found one about a job opening — in 2011. Think it’s been filled?”

Many of you discovered greetings from long-lost friends or students:

• “I found one from someone I had worked with in Viet Nam in 1970 — he had sent me a message to reestablish contact over two years ago. Glad I found it. Hope he still reads his messages on Facebook.”

• “Whoa! There’s tons of important messages in here. Former students of mine were trying to reach out to me. I can’t believe Facebook doesn’t notify you in any way about these.”

• “Just found a message from a long-lost friend in my ‘Other’ folder. I’d been trying to find her for more than a decade with no success. ??David Pogue, when she and I finally reunite, our first glass will be raised to you!”

• “I reconnected with an old penpal who I haven’t heard from in 15 years thanks to your tip on the ‘Other’ folder!”

• “I logged into it and found a message from an old acquaintance from 40 years ago. It portends an interesting catching up on each other.”

There were missed social opportunities:

• “Just discovered my Other folder! Missed an amazing party (damn!) and found a ton of messages dating back several years!! How the hell did that happen?! I am a savvy social media user and I’m astonished at this!”

• “Whoa. I had 58 messages there, one being an invitation to a bridal shower.”

And there were Good Samaritans trying to return lost credit cards and wallets:

• “Unbelievable! My husband’s wallet was lost and presumed stolen — someone had found it a year ago and sent us a Facebook message, which was hidden until now! Thanks so much.”

• “Just checked and found a message from someone telling me that they found my lost wallet…a year ago.? They really need to redo some thinking on that ‘other’ folder.”

• “A couple of years ago, I stupidly left my card in an ATM while traveling in Argentina. ?I discovered this ‘Other’ inbox a couple of months ago, and my messages included one from a very nice lady in Buenos Aires, who had a) found my card, b) not stolen all my money and c) actually bothered to track me down through Facebook to see if I wanted to reclaim it. Unfortunately, I found out about 18 months too late.”

Several of you found yourselves in the same position I did: feeling bad that people thought they were being ignored:

• “Now I have to apologize to several past acquaintances and let them know I haven’t been blowing them off!”

Several readers wanted to know how they could access the Other folder on their phones or tablets.

The answer: you can’t. The Facebook apps don’t permit you to see the Other folder. (You can, of course, go to www.facebook.com in your phone or tablet’s Web browser — don’t use the app — to work on the Other folder there.)

There was also a comment from Jimmy Chen, who works for the Messages team at Facebook. He wrote:

• “Our priority is delivering the most relevant messages to you while keeping lower-quality messages out. We use a number of factors to determine that, the most important of which is friendship. If you’re already friends with the sender, or you have a mutual friend, then the message will land in your inbox.”

Mr. Chen was also concerned by the implication that the “Other” folder and the $1 charge to avoid it were created at the same time. They weren’t:

• “The Other folder has existed for a long time before we introduced that ability. The point of being able to pay $1 to deliver to Inbox is that sometimes there are legitimate cases where you’d want to message a stranger — for example, you discovered a long-lost friend, or you found someone’s wallet on the bus.”

One reader, Ilya, had a thoughtful solution to the $1 problem:

• “If the goal really is to prevent spam and not to raise revenue, why not refund the charge if the user replies to the message? In fact, why not let each user set his or her own amount for accepting messages from strangers? The deposit is refunded if the user replies (or just clicks a button acknowledging the message as valid).”

I love that idea! How about it, Jimmy?

I also heard from Jonathan Thaw, who works in Facebook’s public relations department. He said these critiques will be passed along to Facebook’s Messages team. He also pointed out that, in fact, one of Facebook’s preference settings lets you change how much mail goes into the “Other” folder. (When you’re viewing your messages, click the tiny padlock next to your name at top left of the screen. Click “Who can contact me?”)

You have only two options here: Basic (the factory setting, the one causing all the problems) and Strict.

Unfortunately, the Strict option puts even more messages into the “Other” folder! It’s making the problem of missed messages worse. (A warning there even says: “You may miss messages from other people you know.”)

Look: it’s clear that the “Other”-folder system is broken in a very upsetting way. It’s preventing important connections, blocking the very communications that Facebook was created to foster.

Let’s hope that Facebook finds a better solution to blocking unwanted messages. Because right now, the secret Other folder is swallowing up a lot more than spam.

Pogue’s Posts Blog: A Better Google Maps App for Apple and Android Devices

Google Map’s new directory buttons.

Our story so far: Last September, Apple decided to dump the Google Maps app that had been on the iPhone for years. Apple replaced it with its own Maps app — software with so many problems that Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, apologized and even recommended that people use other apps until Apple could fix its own one.

In December — incredibly quickly — Google responded by introducing its own Maps app for iPhone. It’s a spectacular app, among the best apps ever written. It’s fast, beautiful and so good at guessing what you mean when you start typing a destination, it’s almost mind reading. You can read the details here.

Today, that delightful news gets even better. Not only has Google improved Google Maps for iPhone, it’s also brought that same free app to three machines that never had it: the iPad, Android phones and Android tablets. (The Android versions are available for download today; it requires the Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean version of Android — recent versions, in other words. The iOS versions will be available shortly.)

For Androidians, the biggest news is the design of the app itself. It’s modeled on the iPhone app, the one that’s simple and fast and elegant. It’s also uncluttered by the morass of menus that have always plagued the existing Maps app for Android.

But for practitioners of all religions — tablet, phone, iOS, Android — the other news is the new features that today’s new version brings. They include:

* Greater speed. All app versions are faster than before.

* Better place information. Half the time, you don’t even need navigation instructions; you just use Google Maps as the world’s smartest Yellow Pages, to find a nearby restaurant, movie theater, drugstore or whatever.

The details for found places now include a one-line description (“Chinese restaurant famous for dim sum”); a five-star rating system (including a decimal — “4.3,” for example — because, let’s face it, almost everything these days winds up with a four-star rating); the ability to upload your own photos of a place; and a more complete integration of the Zagat guides, which Google bought.

* Greater emphasis on exploration. Google Maps has always excelled at getting you to a known destination. But Google now wants the app to help you choose a restaurant, bar, store, recreation center or hotel, at least in major United States and European cities.

If you tap in the Search box without typing anything, new, photographic buttons appear: Eat, Drink, Shop, Play, Sleep. Each opens lists of corresponding facilities, sorted by criteria like Local Favorites, Popular with Tourists and so on. (Google says that these recommendations are never paid placement.)

* Traffic incidents and auto-rerouting. At last: Google Maps shows more than colored lines indicating current traffic speeds on major roads. Now it also displays tiny icons that represent accidents and construction. Tap one to read the details: “Right lane blocked on 680,” for example. (In case you were wondering, the information on traffic incidents doesn’t come from Waze, the traffic-incident app that Google recently bought. That data has yet to be incorporated into Maps.)

Better yet: Maps now looks ahead for traffic jams on your route, and interrupts your drive with a dialog box that offers to route you around it (if the new path would be quicker, of course). On its own.

* Offline maps. This feature is something of an Easter egg. It’s undocumented, a feature inserted by Google engineers simply because they wanted it. You can access it only if you know the secret. But wow, is it worth it.

This feature memorizes the map data for whatever area is displayed on your screen right now (up to a whole city in size). That way, you can use Google Maps even when you’re overseas and don’t want to turn on data roaming (because that’s insanely expensive), or when you’re in an area where there’s no cell reception. It’s very handy.

To capture a map snapshot like this, tap in the Search box. Use the speech-recognition button and say, “OK Maps.” (It’s a riff on the command “OK Glass” that prepares Google Glass, the company’s “smart headband,” for voice commands.)

A message quietly lets you know you’ve successfully stored the displayed area.

*Nice tablet layouts. On a tablet, Maps really shines. The app smartly reformats itself to take best advantage of whatever screen shape you have: two or three columns of place listings, for example, and luxuriously displayed photos and reviews for each business.

This new, improved Maps app works identically on both major flavors of phone and tablet. You know what? I don’t care how much you distrust Google and its motives. This is crazy good software, some the best work Google has ever done.

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Sony Posts a Small Profit, Its First in 5 Years

The Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment giant said that it had booked a net profit of 43 billion yen, or $435 million, in the financial year that ended March 31. That compares with a loss of 456.7 yen billion ($4.6 billion) a year earlier. Sales grew 4.7 percent to 6.8 trillion yen ($68.4 billion).

Sony said it expected net profit to increase 16 percent in the current year to 50 billion yen ($505 million). It projected that sales would rise 10 percent this year to 7.5 trillion yen after the company releases a new video game console, the PlayStation 4, during the holiday season and bolsters its smartphone offerings.

The weaker yen, which makes Japanese products more price-competitive in foreign markets, was especially pronounced in the fourth quarter, from January through March. Sony said net profit was 93.9 billion yen ($949 million), compared with a net loss of 255.2 billion yen ($2.6 billion) in the same quarter a year earlier.

Higher revenue from its financial services unit contributed significantly to full-year profits. Sony has also streamlined to claw its way back to profit, dissolving flat-panel television manufacturing ventures with Sharp and Samsung, shedding its chemical product business and selling off its office buildings, including its New York headquarters, for $1.1 billion.

“We set out this year with the aim of doing everything we can to get back in the black,” Masaru Kato, Sony’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts in Tokyo. “This year, we absolutely intend to make a profit in electronics.”

Kazuo Hirai, who took over as chief executive in April 2012, is trying to revive Sony’s electronics division, which continues to lose money. Last week, Sony announced that dozens of top executives had agreed to forgo bonuses after continued red ink in the unit.

Mr. Hirai faces a struggle. Once a consumer electronics powerhouse, Sony has in recent years been outshone by the likes of Apple and outgunned by the marketing and manufacturing prowess of Samsung.

Profits in the games division were lower last year after the disappointing performance of its PlayStation Vita hand-held machine, which made its debut in late 2011. Sony slashed the device’s price this year.

Though Sony booked an annual profit, its television business lost money for the eighth straight year, with sales slumping 30 percent from a year earlier. But its losses have been narrowing as Sony has outsourced its panel-making, falling by 137.9 billion yen ($1.4 billion) from a year earlier to 69.6 billion ($707 million). Sony said it expected to finally break even in televisions this year.

The company will be helped by a major decline in the value of the yen, part of the economic policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. The weaker yen buttresses the bottom line of exporters like Sony by increasing the value of their overseas earnings. Sony said, however, that as its business became more global and the company incurred more of its costs in dollars, currency fluctuations would have less of an effect.

Sony also struggled in its digital camera and video business, hurt by a shrinking market for compact cameras and camcorders as more users chose to snap photographs and take video with their smartphones. However, Sony has found some success with high-end cameras with interchangeable lenses for photography buffs.

Sales in Sony’s film business grew 11 percent, thanks to blockbusters like the James Bond movie “Skyfall” and “The Amazing Spider-Man.” The sluggish market for packaged music continued to weigh on the music division, though hits like “Take Me Home” and “Up All Night” from the boy-band sensation One Direction helped stave off a sales decline.

Sony is still seeking to exploit the relationships between its hardware business and its vast catalog of music and films. Though its entertainment business has generated healthy profits, the company has yet to deliver on its long-promised strategy of leveraging that material to sell more electronics — for example, by offering exclusive content on Sony devices.