In a bizarre turn of events, T-Mobile is once again carrying the Sony Xperia Z3. As a recap, in early April, T-Mobile unexpectedly stopped offering the Xperia Z3. While a sudden move by the carrier, it seemed plausible that it had to do with the impending announcement of the Xperia Z4, Sony’s next flagship smartphone. Two weeks later, Sony would announce the Xperia Z4 but only for Japan with no details on an international rollout. Now, the Xperia Z3 is once again available for purchase on T-Mobile.

Let’s talk a little more after the jump.

In just the last few days, the Xperia Z3 has not only returned to T-Mobile’s online portal, but has returned with a price cut as well. It’s unclear if this is one of those ‘sales’ which lasts forever or is a temporary price cut. Regardless, you can currently get the Xperia Z3 for $499, down $130 from its original MSRP. We’ve reached out to T-Mobile on the matter but have yet to hear back.

Still, the situation seems rather odd. If this whole event was purely an inventory correction, be it from Sony or T-Mobile, why wouldn’t the product be listed out of stock? Instead, did T-Mobile plan to pull the plug on the phone (which they did) only to find enough units sitting around that it’d be worth trying to clear them out and not take a write off on them? Another equally plausible scenario is that T-Mobile expected the Z4 as well and, when the phone was announced with no international rollout information, they decided to list what devices they had again.

Of course, these are hypothetical scenarios at best and don’t explain why T-Mobile wouldn’t simply have put units on sale from the beginning if they were expecting an update. Heck, even if they were terminating their relationship with Sony, you’d think they’d still want to clear out what devices they own. You can see the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z4 side by side here. Thanks to long time reader Khaled for pointing us towards this piece of news.

Discuss:

What’s your speculation about the matter?

[Via T-Mobile]