Reporting its April-June quarter results on Thursday, the electronics and entertainment giant Sony said that it had suffered a 37.1 billion yen net loss - hit largely by the tumbling sales, as well as a strong yen that eroded overseas revenue and raised domestic production costs.

During the same quarter last year, Sony had posted a profit of 34.98 billion yen.

Though the company's first quarter operating loss figure of 25.7 billion yen was a dramatic fall from a 73.44 billion yen profit in the same quarter last year, it was still less than the average analysts' estimates of a 103.1 billion yen loss.

The year-on-year sales in Sony's core consumer technology business - comprising Bravia LCD televisions, Cyber-shot digital cameras, Handycam video recorders and Walkman music players - plunged 27.3 percent 773.4 billion yen.

Even though Sony has statistically been beaten by the Apple iPod and Nintendo in the portable music and videogames arena respectively; and it is struggling to compete with Samsung Electronics in LCD TVs, the company is still optimistic that it will surpass its official forecast and at least break even for the full year.

At a news conference, Nobuyuki Oneda, the Chief Financial Officer of the Tokyo, Japan-based Sony Corp, said: "We are keeping our official forecast but internally we are aiming to at least break even."