It’s not a secret that Sony has not been doing well in the smartphone market as compared to a lot of other Android brands. Last quarter, they only sold 1.3 million devices and this quarter, they’re only expecting around 700,000 units to be shipped globally. And now another death knell has sounded as their website dedicated to mobile devices, sonymobile.com, has now been discontinued. Users who go to that url will instead be redirected to Sony.com, the company’s main website.
Don’t worry just yet though as it’s just the dedicated Xperia website that is being discontinued. Well, that’s just it for now but things aren’t looking very promising. The whole line of smartphones can still be found on Sony.com but it’s under the Mobile subsection in the Electronics menu. This just means that the smartphone part of their business isn’t that important enough or income-generating enough to warrant a separate website.
This is not really a surprise given the past developments regarding Xperia properties, according to Phone Arena. They previously confirmed that they will be closing the official Xperia support forum. Their dedicated mobile business in Europe, Sony Mobile Communications AB, will also be shutting down soon. All of these point to an inevitable shutdown of the Xperia business, but it seems like they’re still holding on to it, at least for now.
Even though there is an obvious dip in the demand for Xperia smartphones, Sony is hoping that reducing production costs and the increasing demand for 5G devices will turn things around for them. They are not alone in this as both HTC and LG are also hoping for reversals in their fortune because of 5G devices. So far, LG hasn’t seen any uptick in sales yet despite being one of the first brands to ship 5G supporting phones.
As for the fate of Sony Xperia, let’s hope for the best but also expect the worst given these new developments. We’re still waiting for a new smartphone that will blow our minds and increase demand for their devices.
