It’s a case of good news/bad news for Sony Mobile, the division responsible for the companies line of Android smartphones. According to the latest IDC report, Sony Mobile climbed to the number 3 spot in the global smartphone market in the third quarter, behind Samsung and Apple. This is quite the accomplishment since Sony was in the number 6 spot just a year ago. That right there is the good news, especially if you take into consideration the division’s ability to raise revenue to $3.9 billion.

The bad news if it can be called that, is how Sony was able to climb three spots in such a competitive marketplace. No — Sony hasn’t been able to sell droves of smartphones with some new and cohesive marketing campaign. Instead, the rise is mostly thanks to the dramatic fall of Nokia (now exclusively making Windows 8 phones), HTC, and RIM. In fact, Sony’s overall market share has fallen by 0.2%, down to 4.8%, compared to a year ago. The once-dominant Nokia, however has taken the biggest stumble to 3.4% from 13.6% a year earlier. HTC is also dramatically down to 4.7% from 10.3% while RIM’s share fell to 4.2% from 9.6%.

This is in star contract of Samsung who has climbed to 31.3% from 22.7% while Apple has had a uptick as well, 14.6% from 13.8%. This places the top two smartphone makers with 50% marketshare while no other competitor holds more than 5%. Even Sony has acknowledged that their gains are mostly due to the further rise of the top two makers and the fall of others.

With seemingly a dozen new low-end Android smartphones being introduced each week in this hyper-competitive market with razor thin margins, Sony is said to be focusing on developing new high-end, flagship models to compete with the iPhone and Galaxy models. In fact, Apple famously chooses not to compete in low end products while opting for smaller but more lucrative market shares.

Discuss:

What do you think Sony has to do with their mobile division in order to have a meaningful gain?

[Via WSJ]