Sony confirms which countries it has dropped for mobile

Sony held a corporate strategy day earlier today, detailing its medium-term plans for the business to FY 2020 (31 March 2021). An update on each of the businesses was given, including the Electronics Products & Solutions Segment (EP&S) which now houses the mobile communication (MC) business under its umbrella.

There wasn’t much new information within what was presented. Sony confirmed it wants MC to be profitable by FY 2020, by reducing operating costs by 50 percent (vs FY 2017). It also aims to leverage its reorganisation under the EP&S segment to strengthen its product appeal for smartphones. It highlights the Xperia 1 as the first example of this.



However, the most interesting slide was confirmation of which regions around the world it is now focused on, and by consequence which regions were ‘defocused’. Sony confirms that the focus regions are Japan, Europe, Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, there is a long-list of ‘non-focus’ regions which you can see shaded red in the slide below.

This defocused regions include India, Australia, Canada, South America, Mexico, Africa, the Middle East and others. We have been hearing from many in these regions that Sony has pulled out quietly, but this is the first official confirmation.

It shows that Sony is not expecting a quick bounce back in smartphone volumes any time soon. If you are in one of the ‘defocused’ regions, how do you feel about the news? Will you still try and hunt out the latest Xperia models and import if necessary? Or do you feel that other smartphones offer better value for money, and therefore won’t be missed? Let us know your comments below.