Sony has shocked the market by reporting the second biggest loss in its history, following the Japanese earthquake tragedy and the PlayStation Network (PSN) hacking crisis.

The company behind VAIO computers, PlayStation consoles and Bravia TVs today reported a 260 billion yen (£2bn) net loss for the financial year ending March 31, 2011, instead of an expected profit of 76bn yen.

Ahead of its full-year results announcement this Thursday, Sony said that revenues dropped 0.5% to 7.2 trillion yen, as operating income grew to around 200bn yen. In its first estimate for the year to March 2012, Sony expects its operating profit to also be about 200bn yen.

The announcement of Sony's third straight annual loss followed huge controversy about the company's response to a major attack by hackers on the PSN Network, resulting in more than 100m user accounts being exposed to potential data theft.

Sony expects to have the PSN fully restored by the end of May, after certain global regions came back online last week. It has been estimated that the scandal will cost the company around 14bn yen.

In March, Sony was also struck by the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, which damaged Sony production bases and disrupted its supply chain. The firm has estimated that the disaster would cost it 150 billion yen at the operating level.