Kazuo Hirai is Sony's new CEO and President, replacing Howard Stringer, the company has announced.

The change is effective April 1st, and comes after a couple of rough years for Sony, with 2011 being particularly troublesome.

The company's earnings were on the decline; even worse, Sony had to deal with a huge PlayStation Network outage. The fact that Sony's PR department handled the matter rather clumsily did not help, either.

As president of the Consumer Products & Services Group at Sony as well as chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment, Hirai is already considered to be one of the most powerful executives in Sony. His main tasks will be turning Sony's TV business around and finding a way to compete with Apple in the mobile gaming arena.

"The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses - primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains. The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony’s diverse electronics product portfolio, in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways,” Hirai said in a statement.

“Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature. (...) It was my honor to recommend him to the board for the positions of president and CEO, because he is ready to lead, and the time to make this change is now,” said Stringer, who will now become Chairman of the Board of Directors.

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