Sony To Slash Smartphone, TV Lineup To Cut Costs; Bets On PlayStation, Image Sensors Divisions

Japan’s Sony Corp announced Tuesday that it will slash its smartphone and television product lineup to help reduce costs. The loss-making Japanese conglomerate also said that it would focus more on the company’s popular PlayStation 4 and image-sensor businesses over the next three years.

Sony, which has lost ground to market leaders such as Apple and Samsung in the consumer electronics segment over the years, said that the company aims to make profits from its smartphone and TV businesses even if sales suffer a drop of as much as 30 percent, Reuters reported.

“We're not aiming for size or market share but better profits,” Hiroki Totoki, the new chief of Sony's mobile division, said at an investors' conference on Tuesday.

Over the next three years, Sony plans to boost sales for its PlayStation business by a quarter to as much as 1.6 trillion yen ($13.6 billion). According to the company, PlayStation sales will be assisted by personalized TV, video and music distribution services.

Sony, which sold 3.3 million PlayStation 4 consoles between July and September, said that sales of its devices division, including its image-sensor business, could increase 70 percent to as much as 1.5 trillion yen ($12.7 billion). Sony's sensor sales are performing well, thanks to demand from Apple and Chinese handset manufacturers, who are using Sony-made image sensors for their smartphones, according to Reuters.

Last month, Sony announced that it had appointed Totoki as the new head of Sony Mobile Communications, replacing Kunimasa Suzuki, as the company struggled to sell smartphones in the April-June quarter.

In July, Sony said that it expected to sell 43 million smartphones during 2014, down from the original forecast of 50 million. Samsung, by comparison, shipped 74.3 million smartphones in the second quarter of 2014 alone, while Apple shipped 35.1 million in that quarter.