"A very important business": Sony is not giving up on Xperia smartphones

The Japanese tech giant will continue its smartphone business despite some rather unsuccessful years. Sue Lin, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Sony Group, has told CNET Japan that the Xperia brand is a “very important business” for the company. She went on to say that the company intends to continue to focus on the smartphone business as well as other communication technologies beyond cell phones.

Sony apologizes for Xperia 1 VII problems

The fact that Sony has to comment on its smartphone strategy at all is due to a current problem in which the new top model Xperia 1 VII had to be recalled due to a technical fault. According to the manufacturer, the fault only occurred in “a few Xperia 1 VII smartphones,” but the manufacturer had suspended direct sales via its website in Europe and elsewhere. Sony has since launched a recall program for affected devices and promised to resume sales soon in a statement available to heise online.

Laut the transcript of the conference from Seekingalpha Tao apologized during the conference call: “We apologize for the tremendous inconvenience to our users.” She also reiterated that the company will continue to focus on smartphones.

She also described the smartphone sector as an important business area for the company. “Telecommunications technology is a technology that we have been nurturing for a long time. It is also used in areas besides the smartphone sector. We will therefore continue to expand this business segment,” said Tao.

Sony's smartphone sales have been declining for years

Even though Sony wants to continue building smartphones, consumers appear to be less and less interested in the devices. The market share of Xperia smartphones hardly plays a role anymore, according to data from Counterpoint, Canalys, and IDC. In 2024, for example, sales of the devices were in the low single-digit million range.

Even in its home country of Japan, the Xperia brand fell out of the top 5 smartphone brands in 2024 and was beaten by the competition from Sharp, Xiaomi, Oppo and Google's Pixel. In comparison, the models from the competition offer better value for money or more powerful functions. Sony doesn't seem to want to appeal to the masses with the new Xperia 1 VII model anyway. The premium device costs just under 1500 euros but lags some of its competitors in terms of features.

(afl)