The PlayStation 4 may be the best selling game console in the world right now (18.5 million sold worldwide), beating rivals like the Xbox One and the WiiU hands-down but elsewhere in Sony, things are not looking as rosy.
If the reports are true, Sony is considering to let go of its mobile division as part of its business revival plan, according to a report from Reuters that cites sources from “company officials familiar with the leadership’s thinking”. According to the sources, the plan includes the option to sell or enter a joint venture for both the Sony’s mobile division that carries the Xperia brand, as well as Sony’s TV division that carries the Bravia brand.
If this happens, it will not be the first time that Sony has had to let go an iconic brand name to keep its business afloat. Last year, Sony had to let go its Vaio computer division in effort to focus more on the lucrative mobile and tablet businesses but, it looks like this to has is not enough to keep Sony in the smartphone race.
“Electronics in general, along with entertainment and finance, will continue to be an important business,” he said. “But within that there are some operations that will need to be run with caution – and that might be TV or mobile, for example.” Sony CEO, Kazuo Hirai said to Reuters at CES 2015 last week.
Things are not looking good at Sony. The company forecasts a 230 billion yen (RM7 billion) net loss for the financial year ending March and for the first time, it will suspend dividend payments, after deep smartphone losses.
Sony makes some of the most desirable smartphones in the market with some of the best displays and cameras you can get on a mobile device. The current Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact is among our favourite smartphones. The pair ticks all the right boxes and come with amazing battery stamina — 2 days on a single charge easy. So why is it that the Sony mobile division is struggling? We can only offer an educated guess but it looks like a lack of brand awareness and hyper-competitive pricing from Chinese manufacturers are taking a toll on Sony as much as it is on Samsung and HTC.
