Skip to main content

Sony reportedly to cut additional 1,000 jobs from mobile division

sony one megapixel two millimeter sensor
360b / Shutterstock
Sony’s smartphone division is continuing to show the strain, with a report Tuesday claiming the company is gearing up to cut a further 1,000 jobs from the unit, mainly in Europe and China.

The expected layoffs follow another 1,000 job losses in the same division last year, and will leave its handset business with around 5,000 workers by early next year.

The electronics maker said last October that in light of poor handset sales it planned to cut smartphone investment, directing resources instead to more successful areas such as its PlayStation division and image sensor production.

Related: Sony aims to harness the power of your eyes with a slew of new smartglasses

While Sony handsets remain relatively popular in the company’s home country of Japan, grabbing the attention of overseas consumers with its range of Xperia smartphones has proved challenging.

With pressure mounting on its mobile business in developing countries, the tech firm said last October it planned to scale back its ambitions in such markets. However, at the other end of the market, the situation is hardly easier, a fact highlighted by the Apple’s latest quarterly report, released Tuesday, which revealed iPhone sales of a whopping 74.5 million for the last three months of 2014.

As part of Sony’s new strategy, the company will launch fewer phones globally this year, a plan similar to that of rival Samsung, whose smartphone business is also being squeezed by competitors.

Sony is yet to confirm the latest job cuts, though it’s expected to announce the news on February 4 when it reports its latest financial results.

[Source: Nikkei]

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
How to change your iPhone’s notification sound in iOS 17
how to change iphone default notification sound ios 17 sounds screenshot

Apple made a change to the default notification sound when it launched iOS 17, replacing “Tri-tone” with “Rebound.”Users have been unable to switch back to the original sound or select a different one as the default, and not everyone is a fan of the new tune. As you'd imagine, that's left some folks rather annoyed.

Read more
5 things I want to see in the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and S Pen stylus on its screen.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is definitely one of the best smartphones on the market right now, no doubt about that. You get incredible performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, plenty of RAM and storage, a whopping 200MP camera, two telephoto lenses for 3x and 5x optical zoom, S Pen integration, and more. It’s certainly an impressive package.

But it’s not perfect. In fact, some weaknesses could be improved in the next version, the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Here’s what I hope to see next year.
A new design
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (left) and Galaxy S23 Ultra Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Read more
The Galaxy S24 just got a big camera update. Here’s what’s new
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in Titanium Orange and in Titanium Silver.

Samsung Galaxy S24 owners just received some great news. Samsung recently released an April software update that addresses various camera issues. Unfortunately, this update is only available in South Korea, but according to information posted on the Samsung Korea forum, it is expected to be released in other regions soon.

Firmware version S928NKSU1AXCA is almost 800MB in size. It includes improvements for lowlight images and image colors in Samsung's Expert RAW app, improved text clarity when zooming in photo mode, and support for 480 x 480 resolution when recording Instant Slow-Mo videos. The Galaxy S24 update for April builds on the improvements from the previous February release, which included enhanced zoom, portrait mode, night mode, and rear camera video capture capabilities.

Read more