TOKYO: Sony sees the smartphone business as indispensable to its brand portfolio, its CEO said, bucking calls from some investors that the Japanese electronics firm should scrap the money-losing business.
The smartphone business reported an operating loss of ¥97.1 billion ($879.45 million) in the year ended March, lagging rivals such as Apple and Samsung Electronics and weighing on the group’s record-breaking profit.
Sony’s consumer electronics hardware business “has centered on entertainment since our foundation, not daily necessities like refrigerators and washing machines,” Kenichiro Yoshida told a group of journalists on Wednesday.
“We see smartphones as hardware for entertainment and a component necessary to make our hardware brand sustainable,” he said. “And younger generations no longer watch TV. Their first touch point is smartphone.”
The business, originally a joint venture with Sweden’s Ericsson that Sony took full control of in 2012, has a global market share of less than 1 percent, shipping just 6.5 million handsets annually, mainly to Japan and Europe, according to Sony’s financial statement.
As Sony aims to make the business profitable next financial year, it ceased production at its Beijing plant and streamlined some sales operations globally.
Sony is beefing up gaming functions of its smartphones to tap customers of its successful PlayStation gaming business.
Yoshida also said he is confident in improving profitability at the pictures business.
Separately, Reuters reported Daniel Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point is again building a stake in the company, as part of its second campaign for change at Sony in six years.
Third Point wants Sony to explore options for some of its business units, including its movie studio, which the fund believes has attracted takeover interest, people familiar with the matter previously said.
“It was good that in the past Third Point came in and we had various discussions on the pictures business,” Yoshida said. Sony has sharply improved disclosures of the pictures business since then, he said.
The management team of the pictures unit has been “reshuffled almost entirely over the last three or four years,” Yoshida said.
Smartphone business indispensable to brand portfolio: Sony CEO
Smartphone business indispensable to brand portfolio: Sony CEO
- Sony’s smartphone business reported an operating loss of ¥97.1 billion ($879.45 million) in the year ended March
- Sony is beefing up gaming functions of its smartphones to tap customers of its successful PlayStation gaming business
No Saudi acquisition offers: FC Barcelona tells Al-Eqtisadiah
CAIRO: FC Barcelona has not received any offers, whether from Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, to acquire the club, according to an official source who spoke to Al-Eqtisadiah.
According to the source, the circulating news regarding the possibility of finalizing a deal to acquire the club in the coming period is a mere rumor.
Recent Spanish reports had indicated the possibility of a Saudi acquisition of Barcelona shares for around €10 billion ($11.7 billion), a move considered capable of saving the club from its financial crises if it were to happen, especially as it suffers from debts estimated at around €2.5 billion.
Sale not in management’s hands
Joan Gaspart, the former president of the club, confirmed that the current board of directors, chaired by Joan Laporta, does not have the right to dispose of the club’s ownership.
He added: “FC Barcelona is owned by about 150,000 members, and selling the club is something the owners will not accept. FC Barcelona possesses something no other club in the world has; money is very important, and so is passion, but the sentiment of the members today is to continue what the club has been for 125 years.”
High market value
Despite the financial crisis the club has been going through in recent years, FC Barcelona ranks sixth on the list of the world’s highest market value clubs, with an estimated value of €1.12 billion, according to Transfermarkt. Meanwhile, its rival Real Madrid tops the list with a market value of €1.38 billion.
