Sony has hired two former Apple execs as it tries to build momentum behind its latest Xperia smartphones and tablets.
Joining Sony's board are Eikoh Harada, the former head of Apple Japan, and Tim Schaff, who worked for the iPhone maker until 2005, Bloomberg reports.
Sony has nominated three directors to its board for approval by shareholders at next month's annual shareholder meeting on June 20. The new directors will displace four directors that are retiring, including board chairman and former CEO Howard Stringer.
The move comes after Sony's announcement that it had moved back into profit for the financial year to 31 March, reporting profits of 43bn yen (£280m), after four consecutive years of losses.
Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai's restructuring programme - which saw the firm axe 10,000 jobs or six per cent of its global workforce in the past 12 months as well as selling many of its assets - and a weaker yen have led to a turnaround at the Japanese giant.
But Sony's bid to win back customers is reliant on the firm making its mark in a saturated mobile market that is now dominated by the likes of Samsung and Apple.
Sony was once the leader in the consumer electronics market with its Walkman, televisions and video recorders. In an interview with Fortune magazine in 1998, Steve Jobs said that "the whole strategy for Apple now is to be the Sony of the computer business".
But Sony has seen a major downturn in demand for its products. In 2000, Sony was valued at £75bn, but is now worth only £7bn.
At CES 2013, Sony faced up to its recent failures and admitted it had forgotten how to "wow" an audience, before claiming that it would wow audiences again with 4K cameras, headphones for music producers and new digital cameras.
