Recruiting in China

SHANGHAI, April 4 (Reuters) - Sony Corp. said on Tuesday that Shizuo Takashino has been named as the new chairman of its China business, taking the helm in a market the company expects to become its second largest in the next three years.

Takashino will take over as chairman of Sony (China) Ltd. from Kei Kodera, who left the company at the end of March, said spokesman Shinji Obana.

Takashino has been in China for the last year, previously working as an executive vice president connected with the company's Japan operations, Obana said.

The move comes amid a broader global overhaul for Sony, which has posted weak results in the last few years amid a lack of major hits for its core consumer electronics business.

In September last year, Sony's newly appointed global chief executive Howard Stringer and President Ryoji Chubachi unveiled a sweeping restructuring plan that included the shedding of 10,000 employees, closure of several plants and sale of more than $1 billion in non-core assets.

China has been one of the company's few bright spots of late, with annual sales of over $3 billion in a market set to overtake Japan as the company's second largest in the next three years, Kodera told Reuters in an interview last year.
The company has set a target of reaching $8 billion in annual China sales by 2008/09.

But the company also had a misstep in China late last year, when it was forced to withdraw six digital camera models that were plagued with issues such as image uniformity and problems with their liquid crystal displays.

Obana said the company stopped taking back the models in question at the end of last month, but has not begun reselling them in China.