Early this year, there was talk that Sony was considering getting rid of its mobile business due to continued poor performance in all its key markets. Sony Mobile CEO, Hiroki Totoki, has spoken about this matter, and more, in an interview to Arabian Business, closing the door on the possibility of Sony Mobile ever being sold off or exiting the smartphone market. On the topic, Totoki said:
“The speculations arose because in 2014 we made a huge loss as a mobile business. It mainly came from the write-off of the goodwill of our impairment asset. When we bought back Ericsson’s share [in 2012], we bought back 100 percent of it. And obviously that price was high. We had to write it down and it made a substantial loss for the company.
“But this was an accounting loss and did not impact our cash flow. Our cash flow is very healthy. But the accounting loss was so huge — that’s why people have speculated like this. Before that rumour, we exited the VAIO business, which was the PC business. That led people to think that Sony would exit the smartphone business, as well. But the smartphone business is very different from PCs.
“Smartphones are completely connected to other devices, also connected to people’s lives — deeply. And the opportunity for diversification is huge. We’re heading to the IoT (Internet of Things) era and have to produce a number of new categories of products in this world, otherwise we could lose out on a very important business domain. In that sense we will never ever sell or exit from the current mobile business.”
All of that really puts Sony’s position into focus, however it doesn’t completely account for the actual loses the mobile division has been making in the last year or so. But of course, Totoki has an answer for this too, saying that 2015 has essentially been “a year of big transformation” and that it hopes 2016 will yield the fruits of these improvements. With the Sony Xperia Z5 on the horizon, we can only hope that these improvements start taking effect earlier rather than later.
What do you think about Totoki’s comments? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Arabian Business via XperiaBlog
