Sony is reportedly cutting 1,000 jobs in its smartphone group

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Nikkei reports that Sony expects to cut 1,000 jobs in its mobile group, adding to the 1,000 layoffs it announced alongside its less-than-stellar summer earnings. All told, Sony will have slashed 30 percent of its phone team's staff by the end of its next fiscal year, in March 2016. 

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It's crazy that Sony employs about 4000 workers including the 1000 workers which will be part of the layoffs if this rumor is true.

Hopefully, most of these workers will find other places to work after they are unemployed.

I think the reasons Sony smartphones are not very popular is because they cost more money than other decent Android phones like the Motorola moto G which cost about $200 or less without a contract, and most people buy Samsung Galaxy S5, Note 3, and LG phones if they want a more powerful high-end phone.

Apple users who use the iPhone may not want to buy a Sony phone because the iPhone gets operating system updates for many years after purchase, and it has a lot of cool free and paid apps which are not on Android, and other platfoms.
 
As someone going into a tech job, I hate seeing all these jobs being slashed.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
As someone going into a tech job, I hate seeing all these jobs being slashed.
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On the positive side, other smartphone companies like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, and LG are probably hiring many thousands of new workers to help make new smartphones, so they can keep up with demand for their smartphones which people are buying in the millions of units instead of buying a Sony, Blackberry, HTC, and Nokia smartphone which many buyers are less interested in buying these days because of better alternatives.

There are also a lot of smaller smartphone makers like Blu, Oppo, Micromax, Amazon, Indigi, Polaroid, Archos, Kodak, Energizer, Cat, Kyocera, Acer, Asus, Alcatel, and many other smartphone makers which employ hundreds to thousands of workers to design and make smartphones.

I think that this is an important lesson that you should apply for jobs at companies like Apple and Samsung which you know will still be doing well in many years from now rather than applying at a job at a company like Blackberry or Sony which is still laying people off to save money.
 
I'm sad for the people who lost their jobs. It's really surprising that, despite all the promotion they had done for their smartphones (most of the movies I've seen lately featured characters using a Sony Xperia phone), they couldn't get people interested in them. From what I have read, their sales in the smartphones department are dropping. I wonder what they did wrong, and what Samsung did better...
 
alakazam said:
I'm sad for the people who lost their jobs. It's really surprising that, despite all the promotion they had done for their smartphones (most of the movies I've seen lately featured characters using a Sony Xperia phone), they couldn't get people interested in them. From what I have read, their sales in the smartphones department are dropping. I wonder what they did wrong, and what Samsung did better...
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I think Samsung has better word of mouth promotion from satisfied customers who recommend Samsung smartphones to friends, family, co-workers, and strangers. Sony is also known for selling electronics for higher prices while Samsung is known for selling their electronics like Smartphones, and tablets at lower prices with the same or more features as more expensive Sony mobiles.

Also, some apps don't work well or are not compatible on less popular phones like Sony smartphones because the app maker mainly designed their apps and games to run well on Samsung, and other  more popular phones made by LG, Motorola, Xiaomi, etc because they got the most user feedback from people who own popular phones made by Samsung. App compatibility is one of the reasons people buy popular Samsung smartphones because the phone most likely work well and is compatible with the most number of apps, games, and services in the Google Play store.

Kpop/Korean pop music like PSY-Gangnam Style, and Girl's Generation are also very popular these days, and a lot of Kpop stars most likely use a South Korean phone made by Samsung, LG, or an American phone like the iPhone made by Apple. Popular Basketball players like Lebron James and Ellen Degeneres the TV host of Ellen Talk Show used Samsung products in the past.
 
It's sad that Target is closing all stores in Canada since there are not many big stores in Canada. There is only Hudson Bay, Wal-Mart, Sears, Superstore and Canadian Tire now in Canada.

On the same day as the Target Canada closing announcement, the News  also announce all 14 Sony Stores in Canada will also be closed soon.
 
A little off topic, but I'm not surprised to see Target go. I went in there a few weeks after they first opened, the shelves were half empty and prices were more expensive than Walmart. Zellers was so much better, sad that they closed a few years ago.

XS cargo recently closed all their stores here recently as well which really sucks, I have got a lot of cheap electronics from there. We still have factory direct but I have had bad experiences there so I won't go there. 

So many places closing :(

Also froggy there are so many more big chains here than just that lol (best buy, future shop, home depo, lowes, staples just to name a few)
 
I agree Zellers was a lot better. I used to buy a bike, clothes, jeans, shoes, and jackets from Zellers, and their prices were pretty good.

It sad that XS Cargo closed down since it sold a lot of affordable furniture, home appliances, gardening tools, and electronics.

Best Buy, Future Shop, Staples, and Home Depot are big stores, but they sell mostly one category of product like electronics, school supplies, and building supplies, and don't sell almost everything like Wal-Mart, Target, and Super Store which sell a lot of stuff where you can buy almost everything you want to buy like Groceries, electronics, small appliances, cleaning supplies, furniture, and school supplies in one store at more affordable prices than other stores like RadioShack/TheSource, 7-11, Safeway, and Save-On-Foods.
 
froggyboy604 said:
Best Buy, Future Shop, Staples, and Home Depot are big stores, but they sell mostly one category of product like electronics, school supplies, and building supplies, and don't sell almost everything like Wal-Mart, Target, and Super Store which sell a lot of stuff where you can buy almost everything you want to buy like Groceries, electronics, small appliances, cleaning supplies, furniture, and school supplies in one store at more affordable prices than other stores like RadioShack/TheSource, 7-11, Safeway, and Save-On-Foods.
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That's true... we do also have costco though :)

Just curious, where in Canada are you from?
 
hissae2 said:
That's true... we do also have costco though :)

Just curious, where in Canada are you from?
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I like Costco, but it is too bad you need to pay for a membership which makes it less worth it if you don't shop at Costco much.

I'm from Vancouver, British Columbia.
 
I had a small Xperia, and while I loved the interface and the applications (great first smartphome) it all went downhill as soon as I upgraded. The support service was frankly terrible. They said to be aware of the problem (it was affecting various devices) and said they'd be fixed in the next update. The update never came, because their effort was in getting the newer generation. My phone was horribly slow, to the point of lagging when trying to type something. I could not text or call in a reliable manner, which are the main points of having a phone. My friend also had an Xperia but he didn't upgrade and his worked fine till he changed phone model.

... And then I read of the sneaky practice of phone OS companies of making old phones models deliberately slower with newer upgrades to give the idea of a wear out phone and making people upgrading. Maybe Sony tried to do the same and it backfired because they weren't hold in very high regard in comparison to Apple or Samsung to begin with... I wonder.

Either way, I think that they have plenty of coverage in different things. I think it is good they try to focus in less stuff instead of being an octopus trying to do every electronic device. I agree that is sad about all the people taht will probnably lose their jobs because of this. I hope Sony relocate them in other departments or something. 
 
Kaynil said:
I had a small Xperia, and while I loved the interface and the applications (great first smartphome) it all went downhill as soon as I upgraded. The support service was frankly terrible. They said to be aware of the problem (it was affecting various devices) and said they'd be fixed in the next update. The update never came, because their effort was in getting the newer generation. My phone was horribly slow, to the point of lagging when trying to type something. I could text or call in a reliable manner, which are the main points of having a phone. My friend also had an Xperia but he didn't upgrade and his worked fine till he changed phone model.

... the I read of the sneaky practice of phone OS companies of making old phones models deliberately slower with newer upgrades to give the idea of a wear out phone and making people upgrading. Maybe Sony tried to do the same and it backfired because they weren't hold in very high regard in comparison to Apple or Samsung to begin with... I wonder.

Either way, I think that they have plenty of coverage in different things. I think it is good they try to focus in less stuff instead of being an octopus trying to do every electronic device. I agree that is sad about all the people taht will probnably lose their jobs because of this. I hope Sony relocate them in other departments or something. 
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Your experience with Sony Xperia smartphone's support sound pretty bad.

I think one of the advantages of Samsung phones like the Galaxy S5 is they get updated at least for 1-2 years when a new versions of Android is released by Google. Samsung smartphones like the S4, S5, and other models are also well supported by the modding/hacking and custom rom community like XDA, Cyanogenmod, etc, so if your Samsung phone is no longer supported, you can load a custom rom like Cyanogenmod on it to improve its usability. People also like using familiar brands like Windows, Apple, and Samsung which their friends, family, and other people use because they know they have better luck getting free tech support from their friends or family member like their son, or daughter who also owns a Samsung phone, and may know how to fix and troubleshoot common problems with most Samsung phones.

Apple iPhones usually get updates for a few years, and it is not too hard to go back to an older version of the OS like back to iOS 7.1 from 8 with iTunes if you are unhappy with the new iOS OS.

Apple maybe expensive, but Apple Care technical support at the Apple Store is pretty good.
 
froggyboy604 said:
I like Costco, but it is too bad you need to pay for a membership which makes it less worth it if you don't shop at Costco much.

I'm from Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Ah, I'm on the opposite side of the country, in Ontario. & I agree, costco is really not worth it unless you shop there a lot. 
 
hissae2 said:
Ah, I'm on the opposite side of the country, in Ontario. & I agree, costco is really not worth it unless you shop there a lot. 
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A lot of people follow their friends' to Costco  to use their cards to buy stuff like Graphing Calculators which still are very expensive.

But, with websites like Amazon, eBay, etc, you can get expensive things like Graphing Calculators for the same price, or cheaper if you are willing to wait a few weeks or longer for your stuff to arrive at your home.
 
I think Costco is one of the few big retailers where you don't hear about their employees striking, and complaining compared to Wal-mart where there are strikes even though they don't have a union.
 
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