Sony's mobile phone division has been struggling for some time, and fresh reports suggest that almost 1,000 of its staff are about to be laid off in Europe, Digital Spy reports.

The firm's smartphone arm is cutting 975 jobs in Sweden, one of its key manufacturing and R&D centres for the territory, according to local publication 8till5.

The redundancies do not come as a surprise, since Sony previously confirmed that it is introducing cost-cutting measures in an attempt to return its mobile business to profitability by next year.

Hiroki Totoki was appointed as head of the division in October last year, and impending job cuts in Europe and China were reported shortly after.

Sony has struggled to become a major player in the smartphone sector, unable to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung at the high end of the spectrum, as well as budget manufacturers in the emerging markets.

There have been rumours that the company could offload its smartphone business entirely, but that does not appear to be happening anytime soon, given that Sony just announced the Xperia Z3+ as its new flagship handset.