FOLLOW US

Sony smartphones selling well, other devices not so much

Jamie Feltham
October 31, 2013

It wasn’t long ago that Sony has facing huge issues across its entire line, but the company has seemingly turned things around a bit since. In its latest company earnings call Sony smartphones were revealed to be selling well, although other devices didn’t fare so well.

Mobile sales have increased by 39.3 percent since the same fiscal Q2 period in 2012. No doubt this was thanks to the general increase and focus and quality of the line, which has recently seen releases like the Xperia Z1. But that couldn’t save the company from slashing its annual profit forecast to 30 billion yen (around £19 billion). Last year it was at 50 billion yen. Apparently flops in the company’s movie department are to blame.

There was also a 6.9 percent drop in camera sales. In total, the imaging arm lost about £15 million. TV sales were up but as a whole the division lost £77 million. That was almost made up by the images seniors and components, which made around £75 million.

Meanwhile the PlayStation arm of the company was up and down. It lost about £5 million in total, though this was said to be down to the recent price reduction of the PlayStation Vita handheld. The launch of the PlayStation 4 is just a little over two weeks away in the US and four weeks away in the EU, so the company is expecting these fortunes to start turning around in the future.

An interesting time for the industry giant, then. It’s certainly not as bleak as the company’s reports were just a few years back, and the impending launch of a massive new product will have it hoping this is just the clam before the storm. It’s also good to see Sony smartphones doing well. It will be interesting to check back in with Sony come fiscal Q3.

We’ve recently heard that company CEO Kaz Hirai will be hosting the CES Keynote early next year.

Source: Engadget

About the Author

Jamie Feltham

Videogamer, music listener, squash player, exerciser, technology journalister. Multimedia journalism graduate, writing for the What Mobile mag and website

Share this article