Grace Huang and Pavel Alpeyev Tokyo
SONY plans to eliminate another 1 000 jobs in its smartphone operations as the firm cuts costs to try to return the business to profit, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The new cuts would reduce staff in the division to about 5 000 after including 1 000 job losses previously announced by the company, the person said, asking not to be identified because the details were private.
The person said that the cuts would include operations in China, the UK and Sweden.
Chief financial officer Kenichiro Yoshida is ending the development of new smartphones for China and is culling the number of Xperia models as Sony struggles to compete with Apple and Samsung Electronics. The additional cuts are needed to reach the company’s goal of reducing operating costs in the business 30 percent by March 2017. A spokesman at Sony’s cellphone unit in Tokyo declined to comment.
Shares of Sony rose 1.6 percent to ¥2 792 (R272) as of 9.33am in Tokyo yesterday. The stock has gained 13 percent this year, compared with a 0.9 percent increase in the benchmark Topix.
The Nikkei newspaper reported the job cuts yesterday, without giving attribution. The company is targeting profitability in the business in the year to March 2017, it said.
Sony in October reported a quarterly loss that was seven times greater than a year earlier as it took a ¥176 billion write-down at the Xperia phone business and cut its sales forecast for a second time. It is ending development of new models for China and focusing its marketing on retaining customers. – Bloomberg