Tokyo  - Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp on Friday raised its outlook for this fiscal year after posting lower-than-expected losses.

The manufacturer of the PlayStation 3 videogame console said it now forecasts a loss of 95 billion yen (1.04 billion dollars) for the year ending March 31, down from the previous forecast of 120 billion yen.

Like many Japanese exporters, Sony has been hit with the double whammy of falling demand amid the global economic downturn and a stronger yen, which makes it products more expensive abroad. As a result, it has undertaken cost-cutting measures to reduce its losses.

For the first half of the year, the company posted a net loss of 63.4 billion yen, compared with a net profit of 55.8 billion yen in the same period last year as Sony's aggressive cost-cutting efforts could not make up for the crisis in consumer spending.

Sales dropped 19.5 per cent to 3.26 trillion yen, the company said. (dpa)