Sony Ericsson confirms XPERIA Play delays in UK

The Sony Ericsson XPERIA Play has encountered shipping delays and may miss its April 1 UK release at some retailers and on some carriers, the company has confirmed. Sony Ericsson has blamed “a freight issue” for the delay, which prompted Vodafone to contact pre-order customers and warn them their handsets wouldn’t be arriving tomorrow as promised.

According to our sources, the delay is “days rather than weeks” but will still mean XPERIA Play availability is tight. Sony Ericsson says some retailers will indeed have stock tomorrow, but there’s no word on which.

O2 has already delayed its own launch of the handset, having identified firmware bugs, though we’re told that’s a completely separate issue from the shipping problem.

Sony Ericsson Statement:

We can confirm that the Xperia™ PLAY handsets are still planned to launch in the UK for 1st April, as originally communicated. However, as of today, we have experienced a freight issue that may impact the number of Xperia™ PLAYs arriving at some retail outlets. This said, consumers can purchase Xperia™ PLAY as of April 1st at a number of stores across the UK.

Vodafone UK Statement:

Sony Ericsson has advised us that it will not be able to supply the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and Arc devices to meet their original launch date of 1 April. Unfortunately, this means there will be a small delay before pre-order customers receive their orders and the device is made available for sale in our shops.

We’re working closely with Sony Ericsson to ensure our customers’ phones are delivered as soon as possible and we will contact people directly with specific timescales when we know more.

We appreciate this is disappointing and are doing our very best to resolve this as quickly as possible.