Sony Corp, once the envy of its rivals, chalked up anew billions in yearly losses, pointing to the sagging fortune of the Japanese firm that once crafted consumer electronic products that became ubiquitous in global households.

Sony said on Friday that it had booked an annual loss of $US5.7 billion for the fourth consecutive year, which was on top of the company's first quarter bleeding in the first three months of 2012 that amounted to $US3.2 billion.

The losses were recorded despite spikes of more than one per cent on Sony's quarterly sales, which in turn was obliterated by the company's 10 per cent slip in overall sales over the past 12 months.

That means Sony's flat panel TVs were outsold by its competitors, chief of which is the South Korean tech giant, whose other offerings outpaced the Japanese firm, mainly in the smartphone, tablet and personal computers.

Sony also had to contend with the rising dominance of Apple, whose flagship products of iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac computers largely erased Sony's previously solid reputation that it once churned out consumer products that delivered billions and huge success to the company.

Apart from the altered consumer electronics landscape that the present world has come to know, where Sony clearly struggles, Sony officials blamed the natural disasters - the mega Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the Thailand flooding - that hit its supply chain in 2011.

Those events, Sony admitted, hampered its production capability and when Sony products were about to ship out, the high-value yen has sheared off significant pie of the company's export revenues.

Newly-installed CEO Kazuo Hirai has been hard at work to find the turnaround formula that would give the global firm some amount of breathing room, which was not necessarily geared for Sony workers, who have been the subject of axing sine Mr Hirai inherited what now appears as a thankless job from Howard Stringer.

Analysts said the horizon for Mr Hirai so far paints a bleak prospect, with Sony's premier business, manufacturing and selling TVs, being battered by the competitions, again headed by Samsung, which had earlier reported record surges on its latest financial results.

And while its Korean rival is so engrossed in expanding its operations and in improving its technological edge, Sony is set to cutback its global workforce in the months ahead, which Mr Hirai said could see some 10,000 workers leaving the company soon.

Market watchers would want the ailing firm to soon issue products that would get both the attention of tech experts and consumers, which they said is the most viable way for Sony to recover real soon.

Lately, The Associated Press (AP) wrote, Sony has been drawing good numbers from its entertainment division, which in the past years have generated respectable revenues from hit films like the Spiderman movie series.

But it remains a mystery on when or how will Sony come out with something like the Walkman of the new millennium, which it can then pit against the dominant products of Apple and Samsung.