Sony's Growing Pains

Sony may have gotten too big for its own good. The company has spread well beyond its traditional specialty of high-end electronics into many other business fields. This is evident to some degree in the U.S., but is particularly obvious in Japan, where Sony hawks such things as skin lotion, online banking services, and life insurance. The Sony group includes about 1,000 subsidiaries and affiliates. About one-third of these are unrelated to the electronics that comprise the company's core. Some analysts believe this diversification has confused Sony's identity as an electronics innovator. Slipping sales, perhaps due to this murkiness, have forced a decrease in the "Sony premium" - the higher-than-average prices often attached to Sony products. Hitoshi Kuriyama, an analyst with Merrill Lynch, supports with this theory. "What is Sony?" he asked. "We don't even know anymore. Consumers used to pay more because the brand meant something special." Since taking over Sony about a year ago, Murdok. Visit