Sony's Smartphone Surrender As It Abandons Android And Xperia

[Desmond]

Expanding on recent hints about its medium- and long-range corporate plans, Sony has reiterated that it will focus on areas of the business that are generating profits and have growth potential, and reduce risk and volatility. If you’re a fan of Sony’s Xperia range of Android phones, it might be an idea to stock up on spares now, because every signal now points to Sony’s exit from the smartphone market during the coming year.

Reuters reports the simple statement of CEO Kazuo Hirai: “[Sony] would no longer pursue sales growth in areas such as smartphones…’

This ties in with previous statements from Sony about its plans for the Xperia smartphone division during 2015. Significant job cuts have already been announced, the six-monthly launching of flagship devices has been curtailed to a yearly cycle, and with sharply reduced income and profit across the Xperia range, Sony has decided that it doesn’t have the fight left in it in the company and is going to withdraw from the smartphone world in the most cost-effective way possible.

The next flagship handset, the Sony Xperia Z4, is not expected to make an appearance at MWC next month.

Source: Sony's Smartphone Surrender As It Abandons Android And Xperia - Forbes

 

[ashs1]

Not really surprised.. Sony was consistently pricing most of its smartphones haphazardly last year... Sony's loss seems to be HTC's gain as it has been showing improvements...
However, the xperia Z4 no-show at mwc is unexpected..

 

[$hadow]

The snapdragon 810 over heating was getting more evident with the delay of the manufacturers flagships. Z4 no show at MWC made it evident that Sony is not making the correct decision be it with pricing ot even with construction. The legendary self cracking still persists on flagship phones.

 

[polupoka]

Ami khuuub khusi ...soitangulo bidai hok! amar 40000 taka jol e gechey oder jonno!
Eng : I am very happy... The devils gonna flee away! My 40000 rupees were spoiled cos of them!

Serious-talk: Ya, I cant help but I still use album n walkman apk in my moto X
M gonna miss my last year with sony.. easy root method.. Lagfree UI, sexy design, flauntable water proofness( my Z1)but crappy camera ..
Moral: will Miss sony

 

[Vyom]

^ Please translate. This is an english speaking forum.

 

[sling-shot]

Sony exiting Android space is a great loss. Sony had a UI that was quite light in my opinion and its modifications were mostly useful.
Sony officially allowed unlocking of bootloader and also supported developers with source code.

Its handsets were decent if not earthshattering.

The world will surely miss Sony in the phone business.

 

[$hadow]

^^That is the main reason for exit.
Handsets were not earth shattering but their prices were.

 

[Anorion]

Hmm
let's see what happens, their Vaio laptops were supposed to be phased out, but they are still available in India years after Sony has exited the market elsewhere

 

[kg11sgbg]

It seems that cheaper smartphone models from chinese manufacturers and likes of Micromax will rule the roost. Trend is towards that way.Whatever these products are deemed to be crappy by whoever,market dynamics is tilting in favour of them. No stopping.

 

[Hrishi]

Their smartphones are not really worth the price. Yet the phones are way better than the counter-parts.
At least Sony had a good design dept. and didn't design the same awful looking chocolate bar every time there was a new iteration unlike Samsung.
Also , I think they were pretty good in terms of Dev. and upgrades.

Take a look at LG. They just suck at Upgrades.

 

[sling-shot]

Yeah. I forgot to mention that part.
Upgrades are a mixed bag with Sony. While the Z series have been promised Lollipop updates even for the first generation ones phones like SP were not upgraded to KitKat for no apparent reason.

 

[ashs1]

"& not to forget, many mid-rangers not only didn't get lollipop, they got "bug fix" updates which introduced more new bugs. :/ " - Xperia L User

 

[kkn13]

Hmm
let's see what happens, their Vaio laptops were supposed to be phased out, but they are still available in India years after Sony has exited the market elsewhere

still parts and service are a concern..

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xperia has always been a love-hate thing for me
I loved the design of the higher end ones but found most of the other xperia designs boring and monotonous
the cameras were the closest thing to a Pureview sensor in the android world

I have a feeling MS will benefit from this as well with Windows 10 round the corner which will feature "remote play functions" in the next update which was otherwise only found on Xperia phones,camera quality was also similiar usually,design and build quality was also a tough choice between the two
Ive always liked Sony products but recently the self cracking screen issues etc were a major concern
this is a huge blow to android overall imho

 

[sujoyp]

It seems exit of japaneese company and slowly even the tiwaneese samsung very soon...and we will just be buying all chineese lenovo, huwei, one plus etc

 

[SaiyanGoku]

Instead of Sony, Samdung should've been the one to bite the dust.

 

[sling-shot]

An Indian company may hopefully pick up the mantle and become a world class one. One can hope.

 

[Anorion]

uh mmx?

 

[kkn13]

uh mmx?

I think Xolo has a better chance if any,MMX only rebrands phones
Xolo does stuff to change design or even make their own stuff from time to time

MMX should start making their own phones instead of rebranding or partner with other brands which are trying to get a foothold in India such as Xiaomi(After sales of MMX is better established even if quality etc is bad) imho

 

[sling-shot]

You grabbed that thought from my mind!

Xolo because:
1. HIVE UI. No other Indian brand that I know of has attempted a thing like that till now. Shows some original thinking.

2. Partnership with Intel. They had the thought to do something different by partnering with Intel.

3. I am not sure but they do provide some sort of updates to some of their customers.

4. Have a 2 brand strategy with Xolo being slightly upmarket and Lava the everyman brand.

5. The name Xolo. Probably a play on YOLO but with people who think like that innovation is possible.

The million dollar question is will they?

With SONY gone there is no decent serviceable brand left. HTC is there but their service does not extend beyond metros.

 

[REDHOTIRON2004]

Why not Sony just sells its smartphone section to some other company just like Nokia did?

I liked Sony specifically for there multimedia capabilities. Sound, music, picture and movies won't be the same again.

If anyone could compete with apple. Then it was Sony. It's sad to see them go. As on android side cheap Chinese brand or Samsung would rule. They just make phones not artworks or masterpieces for the senses.

Microsoft would definitely benefit from that. And apple once again would be able to increase there sales as a vacuum would be created that could only be filled by a much costlier iphone.