The Sony Xperia 1 is in poor health: There’s a lot riding on the Xperia 2
Sales of Sony’s Xperia smartphones are continuing to decline despite a positive critical reception to its latest Xperia 1 flagship.
The news broke on Tuesday when Sony when the company unveiled its latest quarterly financial statement. The statement revealed a 15% quarter-on-quarter decline in phone revenue and that it only shipped 900,000 smartphones between March 31st and June 30th. Specifically the company reported the division responsible for Xperia handsets taking in $4.45 billion (483.9 billion yen) in revenue during the quarter. It took in $5.23 billion (568.2 billion yen) during the same period in 2018.
This puts the company well behind competing phone manufactures and lends credence to recent sales data from the IDC suggesting Sony doesn’t even command a 5% share of the global phone market. Something that would have been unheard of during its heyday.
The poor performance led Sony to further drop its sales forecasts for phones. The company originally forecast to sell 5 million Xperia smartphones this year. It now expects to sell 4 million. This is a 2.5 million drop on the 6.5 million Xperias it sold in 2018.
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The figure is a shame as the Xperia 1 was one of the first Sony phones Trusted Reviews has recommended in quite some time. The phone won over Mobile Editor Max Parker by offering buyers one of the best cameras we’ve seen on a Sony phone, a unique design and excellent screen. It led us to label it “the best Sony phone in years and a unique approach that should deservedly win fans.”
The news could spell trouble for the Xperia smartphone division and put a lot of pressure on its hotly rumoured next flagship, the Xperia 2.
Sony’s not shy about culling under performing divisions. It did the same when it sold its Vaio line of laptops many moons ago and the ongoing under performance of its Xperia phones will likely only be tolerated for so long. This is especially true given the strong performance of competing parts of the company. Sony’s Imaging and Music wings both saw 10% or above growth in the same period. The performance contributed to an overall 18% year-on-year increase in overall operating profit to $2.1 billion.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
