According to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters' reports, Sony's Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer said in an interaction with media representatives on Thursday that the ongoing holiday shopping season is shaping up nicely for the company.

Saying that Sony's increase in sales for televisions, PlayStation 3 console, and computers has been "very positive," Stringer added: "I don't think there were any negatives, but we need a little more time to find out how big it was."

Giving the hint of a positive outlook for the holiday season, the cautiously-optimistic Stringer also said that it was still too early to gauge whether the robust holiday season numbers would be any indication of a longer-term economic improvement in the coming year for Sony, which has of late been losing its market share in the electronics goods' category.

Talking about a new business plan of the Tokyo-based company, Stringer said that Sony intends achieving a 5 percent operating margin as well as a return on equity of 10 percent over the next four-year period.

Stringer added that Sony is eyeing the rechargeable battery market as one of the means to achieve its proposed goals. He elaborated that the lithium-ion batteries' market is likely to grow, and Sony is planning them for electric cars. He said: "It's worth putting our best engineers at it ... It's worth a shot, I think."