The departure of Stringer, who last year handed the top post to Kazuo Hirai, would officially mark an end to a period in which Sony, under Stringer, struggled to revive its creative edge and ceded ground to rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.
Stringer, once a rare foreign CEO at a top Japanese company, said his retirement would let him pursue "new opportunities", the Financial Times quoted him as telling a Japan Society lecture in New York on Friday.
He will step down at a shareholders' meeting in June, the paper said.
Sony could not be reached for comment immediately.
Stringer, a Welshman and a former journalist who later ran U.S. broadcaster CBS, became Sony's CEO in 2005. He is known for cost cuts and restructuring but the company was unable to make game-changer products while he was at helm.
The current CEO Hirai is doubling down on consumer electronics with a focus on mobile phones, tablets and gaming, while shedding non-core assets in a bid to revive Sony criticised as having lost its creative edge.
© Thomson Reuters 2013
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