Sony Mobile Accounted For Less Than 1% of U.S. Phone Activations in Q4 2014

Sony’s struggle in mobile is not a secret. While the company had hoped to expand on their 50 million units sold in 2014, it’s now looking more and more like Sony will finish the year at either a small loss in sales or at best, flat. While final numbers won’t be in for another month or so, it’s likely that Sony Mobile will finish the year at 40 million. In comparison, Sony finished 2013 with 39 million units sold. At this point, the only hope Sony has is for North American sales, a market which they were not present in 2013 to be a blockbuster for them but that’s an unlikely scenario.

Despite partnering with T-Mobile and Verizon to offer their flagship Xperia Z3, Sony Mobile accounted for less than 1% of US phone activations in Q4 2014. Let’s talk details.

What should have been a hit quarter for Sony, after finally reentering the US market again and with two viable partners is shaping up to be yet another lost opportunity for the company. Till now, Sony had mostly offered their Xperia smartphones through their own retail website in unlocked variants. With the company having little mindshare in US consumer eyes and prices that are considerably high due to them being unlocked, little if any Sony were actually being sold in the US. All of this changed in Fall 2014 when Sony partnered with T-Mobile and Verizon.

While with T-Mobile, Sony phones were being sold at full price, the strategy went with the marketing campaign that T-Mobile had been building on (no contracts). The pricing structure was also not something unique to Sony which didn’t make their phone seem absurdly high as all other phones on the carrier were also being sold at full price. With Verizon, arguably the nations largest carrier, Sony went with a more traditional strategy by having the phone offered at $199 in exchange for a 2-year contract. This practice is fairly common in the US which puts the phones price in line with other flagship devices from Apple and Samsung.

Unfortunately for Sony, those efforts don’t seem to have paid many dividends. New data released today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reveals that Sony Mobile sales (i.e. Xperia Z3) accounted for less than 1% of phones activated in the US during Q4 2014. The time frame is not only the busiest shopping season in the US, but also during the period where the Xperia Z3 would have been promoted the most. While it’s easy to see the large numbers Apple put up (50% activation) and Samsung (26%), the real story is that Sony even did worse than the Amazon Fire Phone.

For those unfamiliar, not only did the Amazon Fire Phone receive horrible reviews across the board, but it was also offered through less retail channels than the Xperia Z3 and it still managed to get a 1% activation rate during Q4 14. The only company who put worse or equal numbers (as no official numbers have been released) was Blackberry and that’s not saying much. Many have pointed out that in order for Sony to excite consumers and garner higher sales, they must first create a solid product line. While their product lineup is complete, it’s quite apparent from the numbers that you don’t need to present in every product category and price range (Apple), can still use flimsy plastic on devices (Samsung), and have horrible reviews (Amazon) and still sell units. Sure the sales that Amazon put up for the Fire phone are nothing short of disappointing for the company which will result in some big losses for them but the point is that all these companies have sold more than Sony while each facing the ‘problems’ that are supposedly holding Sony back.

Instead I wonder: What’s the point of building a solid device like the Xperia Z3 if consumers have no idea it exists? Maybe creating a solid product is only half the battle and the other half is marketing, something that Sony seemingly knows nothing about. US phone activation in Q4 2014 by manufacturers: