 "Here's what makes Sony the dark horse in the global smartphone market")
While Samsung and Apple are fighting it out to get the biggest cut of the global market share pie, there has been a surprisingly quiet entry in the global smartphone makers list. Sony, which has made no bones about the fact that it wants to come back to the top global smartphone list, has in the last year made some solid moves towards that wish.
Clocking revenues of $72.3 billion, Sony’s operating income stood at $2.4 billion. The net income stood at $458 million till March 31. This is a clear turn-around for Sony, which has been seeing consistent losses for the last four years. And a part of that revenue comes from the success that the Xperia series is seeing in the market.
The first thing Sony has done is unified the set of offerings that it is bringing to the market. The Xperia range has registered revenues of $7.8 billion in the market this year. That accounts for around 11 percent of total group sales. In total, around 33 million Xperia phones were seen being shipped during the first quarter of this year. While this number fell slightly short of the estimated numbers, Sony seems confident that the number will rise by 27 percent – to 42 million units – in the current fiscal year.
Sony has extended its Xperia series to all price categories in the smartphone market…
Sony is also closely looking at the way it is pricing its smartphones. The Sony Xperia Z, which is the flagship smartphone of the company, comes with a price tag of Rs 38, 990 (approx). When you compare that to the Samsung Galaxy S4, which is priced at Rs 40, 300 (approx), it not only comes out a bit cheaper, but gives you pretty good features as well. The Xperia Z comes with Android v4.1.2 as opposed to the v4.2.2 processor in the S4, and is about 10 percent heavier than the Galaxy S4.
Apart from its flagship smartphone, it can be seen that the company has positioned at least two phones in almost every price category. If you look at the smartphone price categories, for every Samsung Galaxy offering, you have a Sony phone as well. Thus, for every Galaxy Grand Quattro or Galaxy Star, you will find an Xperia L or Xperia Tipo. This is a sound marketing strategy – to have a product in each category.
Overall, by having a product in each price category, it looks like Sony has got a clear plan for its smartphone category. And with the steady revenue from the Xperia series seen so far, as well as the rising numbers of phones being shipped out, it looks like the Number 3 position in the global smartphone leaders may soon see a new name. The major point that is going for Sony is the brand value that is associated with the company name. After being in the market for years, it is for certain that mobile users still hold the company name in good regard.
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