Struggling Smartphone Business Causes Sony To Foresee A Massive Loss Of $2.14B
Sony Corp has revealed that it predicts a massive loss of $2.14 billion this fiscal year. According to NYTimes, it is five times more than what the Japanese tech giant had previously forecast. According to Sony, because of the "impairment" in the smartphone business, the company has come to face such a worrisome situation.
According to Bloomberg, for the first time Sony will not be paying dividend since its listing in 1958. The CEO of Sony, Kazuo Hirai, claims that the Xperia line of smartphones are struggling to make profits. Since the smartphone business is not doing well for Sony, Hirai plans to revive the company by concentrating on PlayStation gaming console business and entertainment through Hollywood movies and music.
On Wednesday, during a press conference, Hirai announced that the company is considering to shed 15 percent of its workforce, about 1,000 employees. He also plans to make a change in their business strategy by focusing on countries where they can earn more.
According to GSMArena, the Japanese electronics giant will not be focusing on achieving significant sales growth but rather on bringing down risk and instability and producing consistent profits. Also, the company aims to change strategies of its mobile communications business in certain geographical locations. It will focus on launching premium smartphones instead of releasing more mid-range handsets.
NYTimes report says that in the previous year, Sony was doing well in the mobile business, but because of the arrival of new brands like Xiaomi and Huawei, which are making good profits in the midrange mobile segment, the business of the Japanese brand has suffered a lot. Even in the premium smartphone segment, Sony is way behind market leaders like Apple and Samsung. Analysts feel that the recently announced Xperia Z3 may not be able to do well as it was announced alongside the much-hyped smartphones like iPhone 6 and Galaxy Note 4.
During the IFA 2014 trade that was held at the beginning of this month, Sony had unveiled new products such as the Xperia Z3, Xperia Z3 Compact, Z3 Tablet Compact and wearables like SmartBand Talk and SmartWatch 3. According to GSMArena, Sony foresees that the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z3 Compact will achieve good sales.