Smartphones had not been particularly profitable for Sony for some time. A cunning plan is to shift production from China to Thailand to half costs and make its smartphone business profitable by 2020.

Sony’s smartphone business is bracing for a loss of $863 million for the financial year ending this month.

The company has been facing acute price competition from Asian rivals. Some analysts have suggested that Sony will be better off flogging the business completely. After all it only has a global market share of less than a percent and shipped just 6.5 million units this financial year - mainly in Japan and Europe.

Samsung late last year said it would cease operations at one of its mobile phone plants in China, as its sales in the world’s biggest smartphone market slumped.