Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony is planning to increase research and development (R&D) spending on cloud computing and display panels.
Sony executive vice president in charge of technology strategy and corporate R&D Shoji Nemoto was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that the company’s research efforts should focus more on customer needs and not be so inward-looking.
Nemoto said the company "won’t hesitate" to acquire technologies from outside which could be used in the mobile devices, according to the report.
Earlier this month, Sony said it is planning to spend $6bn in R&D in the year ending 31 March 2013, an increase of 8.4% when compared to the last year.
For 2011 fiscal year, Sony’s research spending amounted to $5.5bn.
Sony lost about $9bn on television sets over the past eight years due to lower demand for its products.
The company is also planning to move its corporate headquarters and other operations from Lund, Sweden to Tokyo, Japan and recent reports have suggested that the firm will be exiting the optical disc drive business by the end of March 2013.
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Lund will continue to be used for software and application development.
In the first quarter to June, Sony’s mobile products division has reported a profit of JPY28.1bn ($357m).
