Sony to discontinue TV production in U.S.

TOKYO, Dec. 10 Kyodo - Sony Corp. said Wednesday it will pull the plug on production of television sets in the United States by early next year as part of its worldwide overhaul of operations announced Tuesday.
The Japanese consumer electronics giant said it will discontinue manufacturing
TVs at its plant in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, by the end of next February,
leaving Baja in Mexico as its sole TV manufacturing location in North America.
The Pittsburg plant currently employs 560 workers and assembles 46- and 52-inch
Bravia high-definition TVs with liquid crystal display panels. All the workers,
who are engaged in production, repair services and logistics, are likely to be
dismissed, sources familiar with the matter said.
The plant will operate as a repair service and distribution center until its
closure before the end of next March.
On Tuesday, Sony said it will reduce the number of its manufacturing sites
around the world by about 10 percent from the current total of 57 by the end of
March under a restructuring plan hammered out in the face of the global
economic slowdown. The plan also includes a workforce cut of some 16,000 around
the world.
Sony Dax Technology Center in France, which manufactures tapes and other
recording media, is also due to be shut down, according to Sony.
The drastic restructuring plan was revealed as Sony expects its net profit for
the current business year ending March 2009 to plunge about 60 percent from the
previous year to 150 billion yen, due largely to currency fluctuations and
slumping demand for its consumer appliances such as flat-screen televisions.
==Kyodo