Sony will make its procurement of liquid-crystal display panels for televisions more flexible as a way to cut costs in its lossmaking TV unit, Masaru Kato said on Monday in an interview at Sony's Tokyo headquarters.

Sony has been bleeding red ink from its TV division for six years and says it will make a loss again in the year to March, due to the strong yen and higher than expected panel costs.

Kato said the company would maintain its three-part procurement system in which it obtains panels from a joint venture with Sharp, from a joint venture with Samsung and from the open market, but would vary the proportions bought from each source.

Sony and Sharp are still in talks over their LCD panel joint venture, Kato said. Sony said in 2009 it planned to raise its stake in the state-of-the-art factory to a maximum of 34 percent by the end of April this year, but media reports have said it will abandon the plan.

Sony last week announced a 6 percent drop in operating profit for the October-December period compared with the previous year, but beat market expectations and kept its full-year profit outlook unchanged at 200 billion yen ($2.43 billion).