In 2012, Sony finished third among smartphone makers. But a very distant third behind Samsung and Apple. But at CES this week, Stephen Sneeden who is the Xperia Product Marketing Manager said that ideally the company wants to enter the big leagues in the next two years. And the Xperia Z is a great start to that ambition.
Of course to be able to enter the big leagues with Samsung and Apple will require a strategy, and the company will probably just abandon entry level devices like the Xperia J. According to Sneeden:
“We’re ready to be a premium smartphone provider, logically then, at the very entry level is where you lose the ‘Sonyness’. And it’s where you cannot implement some of these wonderful things from Sony at such a low cost, we might leave the very entry tier to some other manufacturers.”
Sneeden also added that Sony is continually evaluating the different markets, and said that the “mid-to-premium tier is the more likely scenario” as features from flagship devices are likely to trinkle down to their mid range devices. Sneeden went on further to say that the company “cannot compromise on the experience that the company is trying to show to the customer”, and also added that even a product at a lower price point must still have a “story to resonate”.
Although I have to say Sony has done a great job with the Xperia Z, and if they continue to release phones like the Xperia Z and ZL, in the next two years they could catch up to Samsung and Apple pretty quickly. Especially when you think about how developer friendly they are. Another thing that Sony will need to do is to not allow AT&T to have exclusives over their devices. When was the last time you saw a Sony phone on a carrier in the US that was not AT&T? They will need to follow in Samsung’s footsteps and release this thing on every carrier out there.
I know I want to see Sony succeed, who else does? I’d love to see Sony take the US carriers by storm and release some devices for every carrier. But that may not happen until 2014. But we can always hope, right?