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Sony to slash smartphone and TV production in wake of huge losses

After sucking the wind out of PS4 sales profits, Sony is instituting a smartphone and TV production smackdown

Malarie Gokey
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Sony may have made a huge profit from its record-breaking PlayStation 4 sales earlier this year, but nearly all that money evaporated in light of poor smartphone and TV sales. Following the news, the Japanese company revealed a new plan, which would cut smartphone and TV production in favor of increased investments in PlayStation and image sensors.

Based on predictions, the Sony Mobile division will report a loss of around $1.7 billion by next March, due to the Xperia smartphone lineup’s poor sales numbers. Although Sony says it won’t abandon mobile completely just yet, it will decrease the number of smartphones it produces and in general, scale back the mobile division. Sony recognizes that the move will decrease smartphone sales further and disappoint loyal customers in Europe and Asia, where Sony’s smartphones are more popular.

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In a move similar to the scaling back of its mobile division, Sony will simply produce a lower quantity of televisions, and trim back the breadth of its series offerings, possibly sticking to the high-performance models it is best known for.

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“We’re not aiming for size or market share but better profits,” Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s new head of mobile said, as reported by Reuters.

Sony’s only goal is to make its mobile and TV businesses profitable, regardless of how much market share it loses. The company will focus on creating a few, great smartphones and TVs, while investing the majority of its efforts into gaming and image sensors, both of which are rapidly growing businesses for Sony.

Under the new plan, Sony proposed to boost sales of PlayStation and its gaming division in general by as much as $13.6 billion over the course of three years. In addition to Playstation hardware, Sony is also heavily invested in its new Playstation Vue Internet TV service, which launched in Beta earlier this month, and is expected to go commercial in 2015. Sony will also focus on its devices division, which produces the imaging sensors hat end up in Apple’s iPhones and other high-profile devices. The company said it hopes to increase sales by 70 percent during the same time frame.

Sony has yet to issue a detailed plan for the restructuring, but it’s safe to say that the mobile TV divisions will look very different in a few years’ time.

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Malarie Gokey
Malarie Gokey
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…
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