In a surprising move, Sony Corp is closing its smartphone plant in Beijing China. To reduce the burden from its loss-making smartphone business, the Japnese electronics giant is moving production facility to its plant in Thailand.
While talking about expenses reduction, the spokesperson clarified the decision is not related to the US-China trade war. Sony aims to halve expenses and turn loss bearing business into a profitable by the next year.
As like most of the smartphone manufacturers, Sony’s smartphone sales are also dwindling from the past few quarters. The company is bearing huge loss, and even market share is down to less than one per cent due to acute competition from Chinese manufacturers. Sony is bracing for a loss of 95 billion Yen (US$863 million) in the financial year 2018-19.
With no intention to sell the smartphone business, the company aims to focus and rebuild once again to garner from the upcoming fifth-generation wireless technology. Sony believes smartphones to act as a hub for all the new technologies in the future, and even facilitate networking across cars and other devices.
Only three Japanese smartphones manufacturers – Sony, Sharp Corp and Kyocera Corp left after last year Fujitsu Ltd’s sell-off to Polaris Capital Group.
However, Samsung is also planning to cease operations in China amid declining smartphone sales. Apple is also struggling to maintain its market share in China as more consumers are moving towards local companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi.
