Sony Mobile Communications continues to slide. Sales of Xperia Smartphones fell 2.5 million units year over year to 5.1 million in FYQ3 2016. Sony lowered year end expectations for the second time to 15 Million units, a number which they will likely still fall short of. 

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/er.html

These sales numbers are absolulty pathetic. Sony can not compete in the Android space with more me too slabphones, they need to shake things up. They need to take advantage of all of the Sony knowledge and cross divisional advantages they have. Running phones on an OS and ecosystem that competes directly with their own PlayStation OS and ecosystem is a fools move. It is time they unify their hardware stratagy across the company.

Sony needs to get to work on moving their entire mobile line of products under the PlayStation division, and get all of their wearable and home assistant devices working seamlessly with the PlayStation 4. This will add major strength to their most profitable division, and greatly increase user engagment with the platform. PlayStation Watch, PlayStation Band, and PlayStation Ear would all perform much better tied to the much more popular PlayStation products, than their Xperia counterparts. Add in Phones, Handhelds, and Tablets all running on the unified PlayStation OS, and Sony will have a solid platform and ecosystem that delivers not only the diversity of a smartphone, but also the world class gaming of PlayStation.

At a time when the Smartphone market has hit a wall in innovation, Sony has a major opening to change things up. With the console landscape changing, and games being built around scalability, instead of specifically for one peice of hardware, Sony needs to take advantage of this, and widen their footprint. Allwoing users to purchase one game that plays across all of their PlayStation branded devices, would be a major boost in value for software, and hardware. Incentivising users to purchase digitally would greatly increase profits of the PlayStation Store, and the company overall.

With Xperia sales at an all time low, and PlayStation sales at an all time high, it is time for Sony to use the momentum to try a re-launch their other divisions, much in the same way Apple did off the highly successful iPod. With a unified OS, a scalable hardware approach, and the massive value of all software working across all Sony devices, they have a shot at turning massive profits, and making Sony one of the top Tech and OS companies in the world.

I'd think a wiser decision would be to drop their phone division all together, they all ready dropped dedicated gaming handhelds. Bringing 2 of their failed divisions together is just a plan for disaster. Plus there is a reason why phones are 'slabs' the design is ergonomic and compact. Also making their own OS would just be Windows phone all over again where you can only get 5% of the apps from the Apple appstore and Google playstore. The mass market for mobile phones care nothing more than games like candy crush and social media apps like snapchat. They want a nice looking phone with a good camera and access to all the major mobile apps.

Sony simply cannot manage mobile gaming well. Similar to how Nintendo managed to get a godly console for its average-selling consoles, Sony managed to get one great-selling handheld for a 2-gen hardware division that clearly will turn ugly rather quickly (along with the phones).

Sony should just focus on things they're good at. Really no point in continuing if they're just gonna keep losing money

Didn't Sony still make a profit from their mobile division?

They aren't pushing sammy or apple numbers, nor are they doing partnerships with google to make nexus phones, nor are they leveraging the 100s of millions Samsung uses to market their own smartphones......

But they arent losing money on them either.

Sony doesn't have to be the best at everything. Picking the right battles to fight is a better course of action to take.

The difference with what I think Sony should do is bringing full scale games to mobile. Your one purchase works on your PS4 at home and your Slabphone or Handheld Phone on the go. By using the PS4 OS they would would not split their focus as all progress would improve both platforms. The device would have great support because all PS4 Software and OS upgrades would apply to both the home and mobile devices. This approach would drive more developers to the ecosystem, as user engagement would skyrocket.

Sony can learn from Microsofts mistakes with Windows Phone, and use the much better Universal Windows Apps style approach. Micorosfts biggest problem with Windows was the disconnect between Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox. This time around they are doing it right. Windows 10 is univseral across PC, Surface, and Xbox. This will make Surface Phone much more successful, and it will greatly eat into iOS and Android sales, escpecially amongst PC and Xbox users.

With what I am proposing they will have beautiful ergonomic phones, extreamly versitile handheld phone hybrids, all with industry leading cameras from Sony's CMOS plants, and they will get the major mobile apps in time. On top of that they will have access to the entire PlayStation 4 library which will be a major added value.

The difference here would be Sony's shift in focus. During the PSP days they were 100% focused on PSP while Sony Ericsson was off doing the handheld thing. Once the PS Vita rolled around Sony was split between a handheld on their own OS and a multi billion dollar phone division built around Android in an already catpured mobile space. They decided to kill off the Vita and focus on Xpeira, however this left them without Sony's most valuable assets, the PlayStation catalogue and IPs. Sony chose wrong, and it cost them the Handheld market and the phone market. Now they have to build back up, and the only way they can compete is with a product that is fully Sony.

With this move they will have the man power and the dedication to the platform to make it succeed. The entire focus would be on making a great Sony product. This would stregthen PlayStation and Sony from every side.

Sony is one of the best mobile companies in the world. The only problem is the lost their focus, and they bet on the wrong horse. Unifying behind PlayStation they can make very popular mobile devices that will highlight their industry leading hardware, and really shift the tide.

I am not asking for them to be the best. I just want to see them be competitive and increase the value of their ecosystem. They can be the 5th place player behind Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung for all I am concerned. As long as they are making money, and I can get the same experience from my Sony Phone, my Sony Handheld, my Sony Camera, my Sony TV, my Sony Reciver, and my Sony Console I will be happy. Right now they are all discombobulated.

It is easy to tell someone to go all Smasung, all Apple, or all Micorosft right now because they have great unified Hardware and OS stratagies. This helps them sell all of their products. Sony on the other hand has great devices, but even if you go all Sony on the hardware side, the OS/UI situation is a complete mess.The only product that works like it is supposed to and takes advantage of the great hardware are is the PS4. The Bravias and the Xperias are crash happy, and ultra slow examples of what happens when great hardware is paired with bad software. When the Z9D is working it is the best looking TV on the market right now. Start messing around in the menus and you can waste your whole night slowly crawling to where you want to be. This is the only TV I have ever had to hard reboot. All three of my other TV's that ran on Sony's OS prior to going Android where much faster and never crashed.

A unified Sony would be much stronger, more profitable, and much more enjoyable for users.

Makes no sense. Both of these divisions are very different and making profits.

Yes the mobile division is currently making profits, but if the division keeps sliding like it's been for the past two years, that could change fairly quickly. They have to change things to buck this trend, or else the mobile division could be in trouble.

The problem is Xperia has no potential for future growth. They may stay profitable, but it is unlikely. As their sales go down, and they get less and less money for R&D they are going to fall further and further behind the competition in all aspects.

On the PlayStation side, they will eventually hit a wall with how many consoles they can sell. They need a Mobile compenent to maximize user engagement, and continue to expand the PlayStation Ecosystem.

As I said above, they can not handle having two competeing mobile divisions within the same company, and its really illogical to compete internally even if they could. They best thing Sony can do for future growth of the company is combine PlayStation and Mobile, and build a wider reaching unified ecosysem of products. The goal of a company is continued growth, innovation, and ever growing profits. Having a bunch of unrelated products will never allow them to achieve maximum growth, working together and utilizing all of their strengths is the best thing they can do.