The world may well be completely besotted with iPhones and Samsung-made Android devices right now, but Sony isn’t prepared to take a back seat and watch its profits and reputation go down the U-bend. In a recent conference, head of Sony Mobile Kunimasa Suzuki pledged to step up and reclaim ground lost in recent years. Rather than making unrealistic promises and declaring out-and-out war on the iPhone, however, the Japanese tech giant is keeping things realistic and is aiming at third place in the world’s mobile market.

Despite currently being in debt to the tune of around US$8 million, Sony mobile believes that it can move into the black during the next financial year. How? By offering cheaper smart phones to so-called ’emerging’, previously untapped markets. By shifting greater numbers of units to users in countries where smart phones are just starting to take off, Sony hopes to become the third biggest producer in the world, behind Apple and Samsung, in first and second places, respectively.

But with the market already being flooded with low-cost Android-powered phones, how cheap Sony – a company whose products are notorious for being on the pricey side – is prepared to go to stay afloat in such a competitive market is anyone’s guess.

It’s clear, however, that Sony has, or at least thinks it has, a plan. At the last month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company made a number of announcements referring to its potential growth in the near future, with one official even going so far as to state that “it’s even possible that we could buy out Samsung and Apple in the future.”

We’ll give you this, Sony, you’ve got some balls.

Source: ガジェット速報