A question that I’ve brought up throughout various posts has been why Sony continues to stick to mobile. Now compared to years ago when they were losing money hand over fist, their division has at least in the past year stabilized and even reported a small profit. I should also note I understand why a company wants to be in the mobile business but at what point do you throw in the towel and say it’s not working?

In November, I wrote about how HTC is likely on its way out of the mobile business and we soon could have another player exiting as well – LG.

Daniel Cooper from Engadget:

 It no longer feels hyperbolic to say that LG’s persistence with mobile, while laudable, is also a pretty toxic business decision. After all, the conglomerate has been propping up its flagging handset division for a good long while now. The final quarter of 2016 saw the company take a severe blow, actually losing $223.98 million, mostly thanks to its failing handset division. 

Losses happen to all companies and divisions can fluctuate but when the trend is clear that you’re on the losing end, I never understand throwing good money at a bad thing in hopes of fixing it. Worse off, it’s clear that more often than not, when companies like LG or Sony struggle, it’s because they don’t understand the market they’re operating in anymore, let alone consumer behavior.

No LG, nobody is clamoring for a modular phone, but they tried, throwing countless millions of dollars at R&D. I guess life’s not so good after all.

 To put it mildly, the LG G5 has struggled in the market. While it’s not a terrible phone, it clearly leans on its modularity as its main selling point — and there just aren’t that many people willing to pay extra for a camera grip or sound module. Thankfully, LG has realized the error of its ways. A company spokesperson tells the Wall Street Journal that LG is aware of that less-than-positive feedback on the G5, and is “scaling back” the modularity for the G6. Instead, the focus is on “aesthetics and usability” — making a good phone, in other words. It’s not clear that this means killing modules outright, but it certainly sounds like that could happen. 

As for Sony, maybe they’ll one day understand that they can’t hope to sell more phones if they don’t, you know, tell the world they still make, or ever did make, phones.