Sony to halve smartphone workforce by 2020

Sony will be cutting up to 50 percent of its smartphone employees by 2020 in order to turn a profit, according to a report from Nikkei. The news puts into context yesterday’s news around Sony merging its mobile, imaging and TV divisions, as well as closing its Beijing smartphone factory.

The report says that up to 2,000 jobs out of a total of 4,000 jobs will be cut within the next year, by March 2020. Sony is looking to take out fixed costs in the business, as well as reshaping its procurement functions. Nikkei says that Japanese employees will be transferred to other divisions, while voluntary retirement will be offered in Europe and China.

As a result of the move, Sony Mobile will focus its sales to Europe and East Asia, while limiting sales to Southeast Asia, as we’ve already started to see. This move is due to smartphone sales falling faster than expected, both for Sony and the industry itself. We just wonder if Sony’s ever-shrinking smartphone business will be able to compete again – taking out resource only makes the challenge that much more insurmountable.