Global sales of consumer electronics are surviving the worst of the fallout from the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States because of what Sir Howard Stringer, Sony’s chief executive, called the “Shirley Temple” effect.

Sir Howard said that he had transformed the “mildly morose” Sony, which he inherited two years ago, into a company with renewed confidence and an “underground revolution” of young software engineers.

Sir Howard, quashing speculation that he might be planning to step down after achieving his three-year plan to rebuild Sony’s profitability, said: “Am I going to be here for the next three years? The answer is yes. Am I going to be here for the next ten years? Probably not.”

Speaking after a month in which Japanese sales of Sony’s PlayStation3 games console overtook those of Nintendo’s Wii for the first time, Sir Howard said that troubles in the American economy had not affected electronics sales there. “I don’t know why consumer electronics are holding up well at the moment, but in the Great Depression it was entertainment that held on during that period. Shirley Temple was the solution to the Great Depression at the creative level.”

Sony’s hopes of weathering a sub-prime-driven economic downturn lie in the line-up of games for the PlayStation3, which next year will become the chief conduit for Sony’s much-anticipated PlayStation Network. The online platform, which remains tightly under wraps, is expected to deliver video-on-demand services and will allow users to download any title from the massive back catalogue of games originally made for the PlayStation and PlayStation2 consoles. PlayStation Network would, Sir Howard said, put Sony in direct competition with Apple and Microsoft.

Sony, its chief executive said, had performed especially well on “Black Friday” — the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. The day was, he said, “very good for PS3 sales, PlayStation Portable sales and beyond”.

Sir Howard said that Sony was on target to meet by March next year the 5 per cent operating margin target that he set for the company when he took over in June 2005. Some analysts believe that the target may be narrowly missed if the recent weakness of the US dollar against the yen continues to hold the greenback at about the Y110 level.

To achieve the 5 per cent margin goal, Sir Howard undertook a series of dramatic and internally unpopular restructuring meaures, including the recent floatation of the group’s financial business and the sale of a semi-conductor operation.

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