Sony Ericsson's new smartphones will hit the market soon under the new division Sony Mobile Communications that rose from the ruins of the Japanese firm's failed partnership with the Swedish tech company.

Now sporting the brand name Sony, the struggling consumer electronic giant said on Monday that new Xperia mobile handsets will be launched at the Barcelona Mobile World Congress in Spain.

On hand to preside over the debut of the Xperia P and Xperia U, which will be powered by Android, were incoming Sony chief executive Kazuo Hirai and Sony Mobile Communications boss Bert Nordberg.

Hirai takes over from outgoing Sony CEO Howard Stringer while Nordberg reprises his role as top honcho for Sony Ericsson.

The two executives admitted that Sony Ericsson's previous corporate structure bogged down the division's strategy, which had to consider the equal outputs both coming from Sony and Ericsson prior to adopting a final concept on a particular product.

It was a set up that virtually snagged Sony's chances of effectively competing with rivals, Nordberg said

The '50-50 set-up' was a major problem, Nordberg said, adding that "I would never take a 50:50 job again."

"It's a very brutal industry and it moves very quickly ... and every week is a new era in this industry and every competitor announces something, so it's a big, big race going on," Nordberg told Reuters.

He added that his focus right now is to come up with competitive handsets and work efficiently with partner firms to convince consumers to reconsider once more Sony devices that were once the toast of gadgets that connects and delivers music.

It would be a tall order catching up in the industry currently dominated by Apple and Samsung, the latter a one-time lesser Sony competitor from South Korea that has transformed itself as the new global consumer electronic giant.

What ails Sony's mobile phone division actually encompass the Japanese firm's overall difficulties, which Hirai said he has lumped together into four major concerns.

Hirai told Reuters that for Sony to wiggle out of its present predicament, the company needs to consolidate its core businesses of digital imaging and gaming while at the same time unify the functions of its mobile division with content and other services.

Sony has been lagging behind on television technology production, which Hirai said needs overhauling and along with that, the company, he revealed, plans to play future major roles in the emerging medical business sector.

"Sony Mobile Communications needs to work in lockstep with the rest of Sony Corp. It may be a separate corporate entity but the way in which we operate and work together needs to be transparent and seamless as if it were one organization," Hirai defined the mobile division's central function for the entire Sony group.

The new Sony also admitted that as Sony redefines its focus and operations, expectations run high among investors and creditors.

"People have these lofty expectations that we're going to have all the answers to all the problems that plague the world on April 1 ... We're not going to have that," Hirai stressed.

April 1 is the day that Hirai formally assumes office yet this early, the new company head made clear that Sony will again incur losses this year, its fourth consecutive according to Reuters, which could surpass earlier projections of $US2.9 billion.