Gsbt

Despite slumping sales, Sony says they're still on target for an operating profit. 2016 was not a good year for Sony's smartphone division. The company  closed out the third quarter of its financial year by shipping 5.1 million Xperia smartphones — down from 7.6 million in 2015 over the same quarter. Sony CFO Kenichiro Yoshida explained this 35% decrease in year-on-year sales was due to weaker sales in Europe, which is typically one of the more popular markets for Sony smartphones. In response, the company has downwardly revised its annual smartphone unit sales forecast by 2 million units. Image credit: Xperiablog Sony ended the quarter generating 249 billion yen (US$2.1 billion) in sales — down from 385 billion (US$3.4 billion) in 2015. But while sales and revenue income were down, the impact was partially offset by cost reductions in unprofitable markets such as Latin America and the Middle East, along with a positive impact from foreign exchange rates. As such, ...