Sony posts 59 percent drop in quarterly profit

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp reported a 59 percent drop in quarterly operating profit, as it struggled with production woes following the devastating March earthquake in Japan.

April-June profit fell to 27.5 billion yen from 67.0 billion yen a year earlier. The result compared with market estimates of 15.2 billion yen, based on the average of forecasts by five analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The maker of Bravia TVs and PlayStation game consoles left its full-year operating profit forecast unchanged at 200 billion yen, flat on the previous year, and against an average forecast of 224.5 billion yen among 22 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company cut its annual forecast for televisions to 22 million sets from 27 million, but kept its unit sales estimate for PlayStation 3 games consoles at 15 million and digital camera sales at 24 million units.

For the remainder of the business year it expects a dollar/yen rate of 80 yen and a euro/yen of 115 yen.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Anshuman Daga)