Sony Mobile CEO and President, Hiroki Totoki, has decided to put an end to the rumour that Sony is planning to sell its mobile division. In an interview, he was quoted as saying “we will never ever sell or exit from the current mobile business,” which says a lot about the Japanese company’s resolve to stay in the market.
According to Totoki, the speculations started in 2014 when Sony mobile made a huge loss. He elaborated that the loss mainly came from “the write-off of the goodwill of (Sony’s) impairment asset” that was brought about by the purchase of Ericsson’s share in 2012. “We bought back 100 percent of it. And obviously that price was high,” he said.
Totoki also believe that the rumour got further traction when Sony sold its VAIO business. He made it very clear that the smartphone business is very different from PC, as “smartphones are completely connected to other devices.” In light of the eventual arrival of the Internet of Things era, Totoki believe Sony has to keep being in the mobile business in order to capture this particular market segment.
While the Sony Xperia Z3+ was more of an incremental upgrade over its predecessor, the rumoured Xperia Z5 variants that are said to be launching as soon as September show a lot of promise. Let’s hope the rumour proves to be true, especially now that we know Sony Mobile is here to stay in the mobile business.
(Source: ArabianBusiness via Xperia Blog)
