Hiroki Totoki, the CEO and President of Sony Mobile, has given the strongest indication yet that Sony will never leave the smartphone market.
Rumours of the Japanese company's exit have swirled since the smartphone division continues to be one of the least profitable parts of the huge corporation.
It didn't help that in February Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai was reported by Reuters as saying he would not "rule out considering an exit strategy" for the smartphone and struggling TV divisions.
Sony's sale of its Vaio PC business also demonstrated that the company isn't afraid of shedding parts that aren't making money.
Belief in mobile
All of this speculation has led Totoki to state in no uncertain terms that Sony "will never ever sell or exit from the current mobile business".
In an interview with ArabianBusiness.com, Totoki explained why Sony would never ditch mobile: "Smartphones are completely connected to other devices, also connected to people's lives - deeply... We're heading to the IoT [Internet of Things] era and have to produce a number of new categories of products in this world, otherwise we could lose out on a very important business domain".
This statement should dispel rumours about Sony exiting the smartphone market for now, but unless its future smartphones can turn things around – and crucially break into the US market – those rumours might never fully disappear.
Via PhoneArena
