EARNINGS ROUNDUP / SONY

Sony Corp. Chief Executive Howard Stringer acknowledged that he had not gone far enough with cost cuts and efforts to combine entertainment with electronics as his company projected its first annual loss in 14 years.

“More has to be done and more can get done,” Stringer said at Sony’s Tokyo headquarters. “We have a long way to go.”

Sony said it would offer early retirement to employees at its TV division, seeking to trim personnel costs there by 30%. It is also slashing jobs at its movie, music and game businesses. Sony did not give a target for the reductions. It said it would cut 1,000 temporary workers when it closed one of two TV plants in Japan.

Koya Tabata, electronics analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo, was skeptical about Sony’s prospects. “There was no change to his strategy. What he said was more of the same,” the analyst said of Stringer’s remarks. “And that’s bad.”

Last month, Sony said it would cut 8,000 of its 185,000 jobs around the world and shutter five or six plants -- about 10% of its 57 factories. It will also trim 8,000 temporary workers who aren’t included in the global workforce tally.

Battered by slumping sales and a strong yen, Sony expects to sink into a net loss of 150 billion yen ($1.7 billion) for the fiscal year through March, a reversal from profit of 369.4 billion yen the previous year.

The last -- and only -- time Sony reported a loss, for the fiscal year that ended in March 1995, the red ink came from one-time losses in its movie division, marred by box-office flops and lax cost controls.

Sony also lowered its sales forecast for the fiscal year through March to 7.7 trillion yen, down 13% from the previous year.

The company’s stock fell $3.25, or 14%, to $19.33.