Sony’s CEO, Kazuo Hirai, has been interviewed by the Guardian recently, and amongst things that he talked about to the source, Mr. Hirai also mentioned Sony Mobile, and he confirmed that the company will continue manufacturing and releasing smartphones, as they’re aiming to stick around in the communications sector by doing so. Sony’s CEO also admitted that the company is struggling outside of Japan, while mentioning how Sony supplies other, leading companies, with its image sensors.
Now, Sony’s CEO mentioned the ‘communications sector’ because he admitted that the company does not think that smartphones are the future, but because the company considers smartphones to be the devices that are keeping everyone connected to a network, in order words, they are ‘communication’ gadgets, and the company does not want to stop manufacturing smartphones because that would mean they have to leave that sector, so it’s a strategy decision, as you never know what tomorrow brings. So, all in all, Sony is looking beyond smartphones, and in order to be competitive when the next shift comes, the company needs to be active in the smartphone space, of course. Kazuo Hirai also said that his goal for the company in 2018 is ‘sustainable profit’, and that applies to the company in general, so the more sectors are profitable, the better.
Having said that, Sony has already scheduled its Mobile World Congress (MWC) event, it seems, as the company will host a press conference on February 26, and at that press conference, Sony is expected to introduce new smartphones. The company is actually expected to step away from its ‘omnibalance’ design, and release smartphones with considerably thinner bezels, in order to compete with the rest of the leading smartphone companies out there. Sony did introduce two new smartphones at CES 2018 which recently ended, but those were not the company’s flagship devices or anything of the sort, while Sony is expected to introduce at least one high-end device at MWC 2018. The Sony Xperia XZ Pro is actually rumored to arrive with an 18:9 OLED display, thin bezels, and probably the Snapdragon 845, though we cannot confirm anything just yet, we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen.