While Sony wants to become the third largest handset vendor by sales, its strategy to do so may not be quite what many of us expected. With Europe and Japan accounting for 60 percent of its smartphone sales, Sony Mobile will focus its efforts there. “Those two are the most important areas for us and we’ll put substantial resources there, explained Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai.
As for the world’s two largest smartphone markets, China and the United States, Sony expects that it will take a more modest approach for now. “It’s not realistic to try to do everything at once. In the U.S. we’ll start gradually,” said Hirai.
According to research firm IDC, Sony does feature among the top five smartphone brands in either market. In the U.S., only one major carrier, T-Mobile, currently offers Sony smartphones. In China, despite having contracts with the three largest carriers, Sony has found it difficult to compete against Chinese brands such as ZTE and CoolPad.
Sony knows that both markets will require substantial investment to make inroads. For now, its strategy appears to be to secure and grow well-established markets before entering new battlegrounds.
Sony is hoping to sell 42 million smartphones across the world in the current fiscal year (ending in March 2014). It has reportedly set itself the goal of increasing that to 65 million for its next fiscal year.
As for Canada, a number of carriers are currently offering Sony smartphones and both the Xperia Z Ultra and Xperia Z1 are set to make their Canadian debuts next week.
Source : Reuters