Sony said it had brisker sales of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable machines in the financial year that ended in March and expects sales to increase in the current year. Still, low profitability is leading to losses at Sony’s video game business.

Meanwhile, Sony has lost money for five straight years in televisions, trailing Samsung Electronics of South Korea, which dominates major markets with a lean production and aggressive pricing. Even Sony’s stronghold, camcorders, has come under pressure from low-cost alternatives like Flip Video, sold by the American start-up Pure Digital Technologies.

A problem plaguing Sony is that it has focused on Japanese consumers willing to pay high prices for cutting-edge technology. Sony also makes many of its products in Japan, where production costs are high and vulnerable to currency swings.

Mounting losses at Sony’s mobile phone venture with the Swedish company Ericsson are a new headache for the company. Sony Ericsson posted a loss of 293 million euros ($399 million) for the first three months of 2009, causing speculation that one or both parent companies were looking to sell their stakes.

Sony’s chief executive, Howard Stringer, has tried to shift emphasis away from hardware to networked products and services, but change has been slow. Mr. Stringer, a Welsh-born American who took the helm at Sony four years ago, has also talked of breaking down internal barriers that separated various product efforts.

In an effort to speed up the process, Mr. Stringer announced a management reshuffling in March that replaced older executives with younger ones. He also redrew Sony’s corporate structure to encourage engineers from all projects to work together.

At the same time, Mr. Stringer has pushed ahead with aggressive cost-cutting, eliminating 16,000 jobs and reducing its network of 57 factories. But some analysts warn that those measures could further slow innovation at the company.

Sony said it would close three plants in Japan by the end of December that make cellphone cameras, video recorder parts and smart cards. Sony has said it intends to close six more factories around the world. The company said any jobs lost at those factories would be part of the 16,000 total.