Sony has been slowly releasing results from Q3 2014 and there is a lot of encouraging news from it. PS4 as expected continues its gangbuster sales, having sold 6.4 million units in the quarter. Net profits for Sony as a whole were up nearly 238% indicating that not only has the company been able to get its costs down, but that more products are being sold with a Sony logo on them. This could also been for Sony’s mobile division which pumped out 11.9 million units during Q3 2014. For the quarter, sales were up 11% compared to Q3 2013 and as a whole, sales were up 6% year-on-year. In fact, this was the highest number of units Sony has ever pumped out in a quarter.

While things seem rosy, Sony doesn’t see this trend continuing. Let’s talk.

Sony has, once again, cut its mobile divisions sales forecast. Initially, Sony thought it could have a blockbuster year with mobile and pump out 50 million units. That number was later revised down to 43 million and most recently 41 million. Well now Sony believes that they’ll only be able to see 39.2 million units for the year, a 9% reduction year-on-year. The primary reason? Asia. While Sony has expanded in the US and now offers the Xperia Z3 on T-Mobile and Verizon, the company has lost big in Asia. So the many reason they’ve lowered their sales forecast is because they

 expected decrease in unit sales of smartphones mainly in the Asia Pacific region 

Misery loves company in that Sony is not alone. Samsung has seen their smartphone sales decline heavily in Asia due to stiff competition from Apple on the high-end and Chinese manufacturers on the low-end. Time will tell but I remain quite bullish on Sony Mobile if management is able to trim down the company in order to be more nimble while marketing wakes up to drive the point home on why an Xperia phone is the right Android phone for them.

Notes:

Just last week, Sony announced an additional 1,000 jobs cut from their mobile division.

Discuss:

Do you see Sony Mobile heading in the right direction?

[Via Sony]