The results do, however confirm that Sony Xperia shipments plunged 57 percent in Q4 FY15 to 3.4 million units. You have to go back five-and-a-half years to Q3 2010 when it delivered the same volumes. For the full year, Sony delivered 24.9 million units, representing a year-on-year decline of 36 percent.
A small positive is that Sony’s product mix has improved as it focuses on “high value-added models”. This is reflected in a more muted revenue growth than the above volume numbers suggest. Fourth quarter mobile revenues were down by 38 percent (vs shipments down 57%) and full year mobile revenues down by 20 percent (vs shipments down 36%) to 1,127.5 billion yen.
We know that Sony’s strategic moves on the smartphone side is to focus on profitability at the expense of driving scale. This is what we see in the numbers above. The problem is that Sony needs a certain amount of critical mass to ensure its smartphone operations are viable.
It will be interesting to see what growth Sony is forecasting into FY16. The company has not given an outlook forecast at this time due to the recent earthquake on 14 April 2016. The earthquake affected Sony’s operations in the Kumamoto region, with the manufacturing site currently suspended.
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