Sony Mobile

Sony Pictures drags down Sony Q3 FY16 earnings with profits dropping 84%

by Sohrab Osati | Feb 2, 2017 | 2 comments

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(note that you can click on all charts for a much higher resolution version)

It’s been a rather tumultuous week for Sony with news coming out that Sony Pictures would be responsible for a nearly $1 billion writedown which you can see in the above profits chart. Though Sony begs to differ, I think Sony Pictures is either quietly being put up for sale or that was the result of a sale falling through which meant Sony had to balance the division out but I’ll leave that for another piece. I’ve already broken down the earnings report for two divisions:

So where does that put Sony as a whole for Q3 FY16? Profitable, but not by a lot. Jon Russell writes this for TechCrunch:

Sony Mobile ships 5.1 million Xperia phones in Q3 FY16, down 2.5 million from a year ago

by Sohrab Osati | Feb 2, 2017 | 6 comments

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While PlayStation continues to be a stellar arm of Sony, it’s less clear how Sony Mobile fits into the overall picture. The good news is that unlike years before when the division was costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars, Mobile is now profitable, posting a 21.2 billion JPY ($183 million) operating profit. Revenue, however, is down 35% due to cost-cutting measures – but that’s not the whole story.

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Sales continue to be down for Mobile where Q3 FY15 netted 7.6 million units sold, Sony managed to only sell 5.1 million Xperia phones in Q3 FY16. That put sales compared to a year ago down by by 14.3 million units where in 2015, Mobile managed to ship 29.4 million phones, 2016 will only see 15.1 million units leaving Sony factories. For comparison (and it’s really not fair due to how terrible these numbers are), Apple shipped 78.3 million smartphones during the last quarter and iPhone sales are supposedly doom and gloom if you read the typical BS commentary that surrounds Apple. Sony Mobile sales peaked in 2014 when they shipped 40 million phones for the entire year.

LineageOS comes to five Sony Xperia devices

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 31, 2017 | 0 comments

A bit of news from our friends at XperiaBlog. As always with mods like this, proceed with caution and make sure the phone you’re installing the OS on isn’t your primary. Also, is anybody surprised that CyanogenMod imploded? Not sure how much appetite there is for forked versions of Android like this so I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually see LineageOS go the same way. But let’s talk details.

Fitbit explains why Sony won’t make a SmartWatch 4 & future SmartBands

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 30, 2017 | 2 comments

Fitbit CEO James Park:

We are confident this performance is not reflective of the value of our brand, market-leading platform, and company’s long-term potential. While we have experienced softer-than-expected holiday demand for trackers in our most mature markets, especially during Black Friday, we have continued to grow rapidly in select markets like EMEA, where revenue grew 58 percent during the fourth quarter.

Are they actually confident? Of course as CEO of the company, Park will cherrypick positive information about the company but as today’s financial call noted, things are going anything but rosy for them. Matt Brian from Engadget reports about the financial challenges the wearable maker faces:

Sony SmartWatch 3 not getting Android Wear 2.0? Unofficially it is?

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 27, 2017 | 0 comments

Android Wear went from the next great frontier for Google, with OEM partners lined up to conquer the wearable market, to a platform that only a handful of partners still support. In fact, at CES 2017, it was almost impossible to find Android Wear devices, including at the Sony booth where no SmartWatch units were on display. The platform itself has seen numerous setbacks with little enthusiasm from the public to the long-delayed Android Wear 2.0 which was to arrive in Fall 2016.

With the new OS set to arrive in early February, the big question for Sony fans is if SmartWatch 3 will receive it. As it turns out, the answer is a bit complicated.

LG also losing truck loads of money in mobile

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 27, 2017 | 7 comments

A question that I’ve brought up throughout various posts has been why Sony continues to stick to mobile. Now compared to years ago when they were losing money hand over fist, their division has at least in the past year stabilized and even reported a small profit. I should also note I understand why a company wants to be in the mobile business but at what point do you throw in the towel and say it’s not working?

In November, I wrote about how HTC is likely on its way out of the mobile business and we soon could have another player exiting as well – LG.

Sony to debut five phones at MWC 2017, offer 4K display?

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 26, 2017 | 2 comments

As always when it comes to leaks, take them with a grain of salt. My personal preference, sea salt. Oliver Cragg writes for IBT about a slew of new handsets that could appear at MWC 2017 from Sony, including a flagship unit.

The offering codenamed “Yoshino” clearly offers the most impressive specification, sporting a 5.5in 4K display, a Sony IMX 400 camera, and powered by Qualcomm’s latest chipset, the Snapdragon 835. With either 4GB or 6GB of RAM to boot, Yoshino will surely come with a top-end price tag.

Fans have certainly been clamoring for Sony to return to the flagship land with a 4K display. They last did that with the Xperia Z5 Premium but its successor, the Xperia X Performance, lacked such a high resolution display. But for that phone to also include the Snapdragon 835 processor which is being hoarded by Samsung for the upcoming Galaxy S8 on top of 4GB or 6GB of RAM makes me doubtful about it all. Not that Sony couldn’t do it but if they did, what would the phone cost? $900?

As for the other phones that could debut, Cragg writes:

Sony’s “priority is user experience” before bringing Android Nougat to Xperia Z5, Z4 Tablet, & Z3+

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 25, 2017 | 0 comments

Sony has been on a sort of roll with OS updates, bringing Android 7.1.1 Nougat to their handsets before any other OEM. As I’m sure many of you will point out though, for every device that does have the latest OS, there are a handful of Xperia units with a much older OS on them like the Xperia Z5, Xperia Z4 Tablet, and Xperia Z3+. The reason? Prioritizing user experience.

Sony MWC 2017 keynote date and time revealed

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 23, 2017 | 0 comments

I’ve been talking a lot about what we may and may not see at MWC 2017 during the past week without knowing exactly when Sony would take to stage to reveal their latest mobile products. Now Sony Mobile has made their plans for Mobile World Congress official which will see them take to stage on Monday, February 27th at 8:30am CET. As always Sony Mobile will livestream the event, likely directly on their blog and on Ustream which nobody else on the planet uses but hey, what do I know?

Sony Xperia Z6 Tablet on the way at MWC?

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 18, 2017 | 5 comments

A tipster sent a piece by James Peckham from Tech Radar India about the possibility of an Xperia Z6 Tablet being released at MWC later this year. In it, James writes:

Sony released the Xperia Z5 at the tail end of 2015, but its last slate was the Xperia Z4 Tablet a whole generation earlier, and more recently Sony has shown little interest in either tablets or the Xperia Z range, with new Xperia X and Xperia XZ handsets launching instead.

So we’ve been due a new slate for quite some time.

The Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet was a great attempt, topping our list of the best Android slates , at least until the Google Pixel C and Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 arrived. But there’s plenty that Sony can do better, especially with so much time having passed, so we’ve made a check list of what we’d like to see to help them out.

That’s all well and good, but the piece seems to entirely dismiss what’s been happening in the Android tablet space. In late October, I wrote a piece called

Why Sony Won’t Ever Make an Xperia Z5 Tablet in One Graph

and the gist of it is that Android tablets, as far as Google and its OEM partners are concerned, is a dead market with little being given to the OS to better utilize the additional screen space. With next to no support from Google and a severe lack of native tablet apps, consumers never really flocked to Android tablets and in return, OEMs mostly abandoned it. What follows in the piece reads more like speculation leading up to a product that is typically updated yearly.

Mid-range Sony G32XX phones in 2017 could have 4GB RAM

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 18, 2017 | 2 comments

At MWC in Barcelona, Sony will likely unveil two mid-range smartphones with specs that could put some flagship phones to shame. Codenamed G32XX, little is known about them so far though some specs have made their way to benchmarking site AnTuTu. As always, specs like this should be taken with a grain of salt but if true, Sony could have some juicy phones on their hands.

Android Wear 2.0 will launch in February, but don’t expect a SmartWatch 4 from Sony

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 17, 2017 | 3 comments

In a little less than a month’s time, Android Wear 2.0 will be launching for wearables from the Android camp. The software was originally set to launch in Fall but for unknown reasons was delayed and once it does launch, it’s still unclear what wearables will be eligible to receive it. Patrick O’Rourke writing for mobilesyrup:

It’s believed that negative feedback from the final preview developer build forced the company to hold back Android Wear 2.0’s release. Now, however, a recent notice sent out to developers indicates that Wear 2.0 will launch at some point in the next few weeks.

The notice was specifically sent out to developers with apps using Wear’s legacy APK installation mechanism. Wear 2.0 features an on-watch Play Store with support for standalone application that don’t require a phone companion app. Apps that have not been updated with new support will not show up in the Wear 2.0 store when it launches, according to the email sent to developers.

Another not so good Sony Xperia Ear review

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 16, 2017 | 0 comments

Prior to its release, IBT had a chance to spend some time with the Sony Xperia Ear, the assistant-driven headset, and when released, didn’t have many positive things to say about it other than some apps like Maps tend to work well with it.

Directions also work quite well. Ask for “directions to Manchester” and the Ear will ask if you want to travel by car, public transport or walking. Give your answer and within a couple of seconds the directions appear on your phone.

Ultimately they concluded with

Xperia Ear is simply frustrating. It lacks any form of wow factor and doesn’t offer any real benefits over talking to Siri or Google Now through the headphones you are already using. The Ear would probably look good on the set of a sci-fi film, but in the real world it just doesn’t make sense.

Now Cherlynn Low from Engadget has released her take on the wearable and it’s not looking good for Sony. For those who like their dessert first, Cherlynn writes:

Android 7.0 Nougat could be headed to Xperia Z4 Tablet, Z3+, and Z5 soon

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 13, 2017 | 0 comments

Nobody, including yours truly, thought that Sony Mobile could get their house in order and release Android updates in a more timely manner but the latter part of 2016 began to prove critics wrong. In early Fall 2016, Sony announced that outside of Google, they wanted to be the first OEM to bring Android 7.1.1 to their fleet and they did exactly that at the beginning of January.

Future Xperia phones could offer an OLED display

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 12, 2017 | 0 comments

After CES 2017, it’s hard to write off the prospects of OLED displays coming to any of Sony’s product lineup. The biggest challenge with OLED has always been creating them in high volume for larger sized products like TV at a profit, making the introduction of them to the Xperia line a far easier task to achieve. With Sony clearly having mastered and learned a lot from creating the A1E OLED TV which provides beautiful contrast and wizbang features that prevent onscreen burnage which is far more relevant for mobile devices with static UI, the idea of future Xperia phones getting an OLED display isn’t as far fetched as it was 6 months ago.