The Sony Group is reportedly evaluating the possibility of selling Sony Mobile Communications, or seeking potential partners to jointly run the handset unit due to continued losses - a move which may affect business of Taiwan-based handset ODMs in the future.

Affected by strong competition from China-based rivals, Sony Mobile has lowered its smartphone shipment target for fiscal 2014 to 41 million units from 50 million and also been forced to restructure its organization.

Under the newly appointed president and CEO Hiroki Totoki, Sony Mobile has closed its R&D center in Beijing and shifted its focus to developing high-end model internally.

Taiwan-based ODMs believe that Sony Mobile's high-end models are still competitive, but the vendor has reacted slowly to market trends in the entry-level to mid-range segment where only models with superior price/performance ratios could prevail.

However, the policy changes at Sony Mobile currently may not affect orders for Taiwan-based ODMs in 2015, said industry sources, noting the three main ODMs, Arima Communication, Foxconn/FIH Mobile and Compal Electronics, each are likely to receive orders for 1-3 models in the year.

New smartphones to be rolled out by Taiwan's ODMs in 2015 will cover 3G and 4G models and mostly will be built based on MediaTek's chipset platforms, said the sources.