Sony is reportedly looking for options whether to continue its smartphone business or not, if it fails to turn profit in the next business year.
The company has already stopped developing new smartphones for the Chinese market and admitted that Xperia lineup is struggling to compete with Apple’s iPhones, Samsung’s Galaxy series and other competition from Chinese rivals.
The company in July had to lower its forecast for its mobile communications unit, and showed operating loss of JPY 60bn ($499m) in the current fiscal year from an earlier estimate of a JPY39bn ($329m) loss.
The company is planning to split its business into separate units to speed up the decision-making process and to make the units more accountable for their profitability.
Sony recently expressed interest in splitting off its semiconductors operations from the rest of its business to boost the growth in of technologies like image sensors, that are used in smartphones including those of rivals Apple’s iPhone and have been a revenue generating unit.
Bloomberg cited Sony president Kazuo Hirai as saying: "Three years of restructuring are beginning to bear fruit.
"Except for smartphones, every business was profitable in the first quarter. That’s how far we’ve come in turning electronics around."
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If Sony plans to shut its smartphone business then it will not be the first time for the company to part ways with a loss making units, as previously did with Vaio brand last year.
Sony is forecasting an operating income of 500 billion yen ($4.2 bn) in the year ending March 2018.
