One of the more well known names in mobile, Sony, is set to return to Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year and ahead of the launch Sony Mobile’s vice president of Marketing Don Mesa has spoken about changes at Sony Mobile to hopefully get ahead of the competition in 2019.
In an interview with Digital Trendsa, Mr Mesa has spoken about the internal restructuring that’s gone on behind the scenes at Sony Mobile, stating
We’ve been undergoing a lot of change. Every component of our business has been touched.
Sony has been a big name in mobile, including Android since the early days, despite having some stand out handsets through the years they’ve never really ‘made it’ in terms of a hugely popular handset in the mainstream. This year could be their year though if the changes are effective.
Mr Mesa first confirmed ‘We are going to be announcing products at MWC’, before talking about the plans which may not include an Xperia XZ4 Compact – and likely not a gaming phone either. Mr Mesa said
We stuck with Compact for a very long time, because of the ease of use. There’s always room for different sizes, but people want a lot more surface area for their content now.
Despite the growing popularity of gaming phones from Razr and Asus, Mr Mesa also says there’s also not much chance of a sequel to the Xperia Play, Sony’s first foray into gaming phones which attempted to cash in on the popularity of their Playstation platform.
After playing around with both single and dual rear camera sensor arrays on the Xperia XZ2 (the Xperia XZ2 Premium had dual lens), Mr Mesa didn’t have anything solid to share on the direction Sony would go with the XZ4 instead saying ‘We’re hoping to deliver a much better camera experience’.
The takeaway is that Sony is cognisant of their lack of success in a number of areas and have been shifting their internal focus to gain overall market share in 2019.
I’ve been a fan of the Sony handsets, reviwing their Xperia XZ Premium and XZ2 over the last couple of years. They’re good, solid smartphones but they’ve lacked the ‘wow’ factor needed to elevate themselves so far. Fingers crossed we see some good things from Sony at MWC.
And we’re back to dozens of models that are the same or almost the same.
In this vast market for smartphones, “There’s always room for different sizes,” but it seems the majority has spoken and there should only be two sizes, large and extra large, because “people want a lot more surface area for their content now.” So Mesa is saying there is no room for different sizes by cancelling the Xperia Compact. His sentence contradicts itself and compact smartphones are over. Why? My Z5 Compact’s size was perfection.
Does anyone know why Sony phones are only available through the Telstra network or buy outright?
Hi Danni, ultimately availability is between Sony and the retailers and carriers in Australia. If they can’t negotiate a deal, unfortunately we don’t get as wide distribution. Hopefully we see them available more widely in 2019
The xz2 compact is a winner being the only phone available with a durable plastic design, near stock software & great camera. I was keen to purchase but couldn’t find a physical handset available to see in any store in WA. A modern 600 series processor would be adequate & could reduce the upfront cost enough to move a lot more units.
Damnit, they finally start adding OLED displays, and now they’re going to cancel the Compact. That’s the combination I’ve been waiting for from Sony for years.