Creative leader Kirchiro Kurozumi has called it quits, leaving large-name tech Company Sony to pursue a slightly different career in Japanese telecommunications and Internet corporation SoftBank.
This is especially bad timing for Sony, as they’re currently transitioning through a current re-design of their whole smartphone strategy. Kurozumi was responsible for overseeing the product planning for Sony’s Xperia phone series and is said to be carrying out a similar role now in SoftBank’s Mobile department. After his departure one month ago, reports began to immediately surface of Sony’s current turmoil in the form of sales figures.
The Financial Times has reported that Sony’s market performance was already suffering before this loss, as they’re expected to lower their annual smartphone sales target again at the end of October; this will mark the second time they’ve done so this year. We’ve also learned that Sony will be removing their line of low to mid range phones in the Chinese market, but they will not confirm this statement.
Suppliers aren’t too happy either – Sony has reportedly held a meeting with them with no said plans to cut back production, but then announcing a roll-back in production a few hours later. A Japanese supplier has added “We’ve set a sales forecast for Sony phones that is more conservative than what the company told us,”.
All in all, this news isn’t looking too good for Sony’s mobile branch – here’s hoping they can get someone on board to steer them in the right direction. We’ve seen plenty of good products out of them in the past, it’s only a matter of time before something new comes out to tackle the large beasts such as Apple, HTC and Samsung.
Image courtesy of Poder pda
I wouldn’t exactly call HTC a large beast apart from some of their phones that is, Sony has a much, much larger global market share.