Sony’s Android Smartphone Unit Loses $97M In Fiscal Q1 2018
Sony's Android Smartphone Unit Loses $97M In Fiscal Q1 2018
Sony's Android smartphone unit is still bleeding money even as the rest of the company is enjoying unprecedented growth, as detailed by the tech giant's consolidated financial report for the first quarter of its 2018 fiscal year, i.e. the second quarter of the current calendar year. Sony Mobile lost the equivalent of more than $97 million over the three-month period ending June 30, selling only two million handsets, down from 3.4 million a year ago. Its handset revenues hence declined by some $435 million, dropping to $1.18 billion.
Sony Pictures is the only other division of the conglomerate that recorded a deficit over the reported three-month period, losing some $68 million, though the company is much more optimistic about that unit and expects it to at least benefit from foreign exchange rate changes in the coming quarters. Sony's Android smartphone arm started losing money over the last fiscal year which it ended $250 million in the red, whereas it recorded a $93 million profit in the previous period. Given its poor start to the new accounting year, Sony Mobile may end up posting record annual smartphone losses nine months from now. The Tokyo, Japan-based juggernaut attributed the latest decline to significant performance drop-offs in Europe and its home country, stating that it expects sales on the Old Continent to continue shrinking in the immediate term.
Foreign exchange rate fluctuations are also likely to affect Sony's handset division in a negative manner, though the firm is planning to combat them with more aggressive cost-cutting initiatives. On a company-wide level, Sony is doing better than ever, having posted $17.45 billion in sales and $1.74 billion in quarterly income, with the latter metric being 24-percent up year-on-year. The company still has no intentions of moving away from the mobile industry that it expects will be the catalyst for the biggest technological innovations of the next decade. This Monday, Sony brought its latest Android flagship — Xperia XZ2 Premium — to the United States via Amazon and Best Buy.
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