The chief executive of Sony Corp., Kenichiro Yoshida, who oversaw the company’s transformation from a consumer electronics brand into a global entertainment company, will step down after seven years in the role, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
Hiroki Totoki, a top Sony executive who has long been seen as next in line for the top job, will take over as chief executive in April, the company said. Mr. Totoki is currently Sony’s chief financial officer.
Under the outgoing chief, Mr. Yoshida, 65, Sony has spent billions of dollars building its vast empire of games, music and movies. Those segments accounted for more than three-fifths of its revenue in the most recent quarter — up from less than a third a decade earlier.
In recent years, Sony’s attempts to push more deeply into the entertainment industry have inspired a global hunt for more content that recently included an attempt to acquire Paramount, the U.S. owner of Nickelodeon, MTV, CBS and Paramount Pictures.
In 2021, Sony purchased AT&T’s anime streaming service Crunchyroll for more than $1 billion. In December, Sony said it planned to spend more than $300 million to increase its stake in Kadokawa, a Japanese publisher and producer of animation and video games including the popular action role-playing game “Elden Ring.”
