Sony falls out of Top 10 smartphone brands

So we have Sony numbers also (sorry wasn't able to post, nearly missed my flght in Frankfurt on the connection). So yeah. Sony downgraded its forecast for Fiscal Year 2014. Then they downgraded it again. And again. And now the final numbers came in, even lower than the last forecast. They ended year (ending March) with 39.1 million smartphones sold. That means 8.5 million smartphones in Q1 and yes, that means Sony has now fallen out of Top 10. Their last market share is a preliminary 2.3% and of course like other losers (aka Blackberry, HTC, Microsoft/Lumia/Nokia, Palm etc) we won't bother to track them unless they re-enter the Top 10.

But yeah, big news. Almost all the giant brands of 2006 in smartphones have now gone, Palm, Motorola HTC, Blackberry, Nokia, Ericsson and now Sony. Replaced by Chinese brands (Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi, Coolpad, ZTE and TCL) with the final Top 10 slot now waiting the last data to figure out who it is. It won't be Lumia or Microsoft because Chinese Vivo has outsold them already but will it be Vivo who comes into the Top 10 or Oppo or perhaps one of the India smartphone makers or someone else, lets wait to see how this pans out. We may have 7 out of 10 largest smartphone makers from China now in Q1, with two from South Korea and the one non-Asian brand of course does all its manufacturing as subcontracted to China.

Comments

[Huber]

On the one hand this is a pity - I have the Sony Xperia Z2 tablet, it is a very well-made device. Z4 also looks good.

But on the other hand this is proof that releasing a good product is not enough, you also have to market it.

Samsung, LG and even HTC are much more visible than Sony. Also, it would not hurt to give reviewers like Anandtech some samples to test!

In the end, you cannot help a company which creates decent products, but is unable to sell them.

[Maggan]

So the Xperia 4 wasn't enough to help them retain their position? For me that throws some doubt about the necessity for replaceable batteries, SD slot and waterproofing for a successful smartphone.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Huber and Maggan

Huber - totally agree with you but Sony has been refocusing both on the high-end price point and markets where it traditionally was strong. If the Xperia Z4 is a good hit product, and the rest of the line is also popular, they could still come back to Top 10.

Maggan - haha no, Xperia Z4 was not part of this period. It will impact Q2.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Huber]

@Maggan: The Z4 hasn't even been released yet. Also it doesn't have a replaceable battery.

But Sony's devices are pretty solid, as I said I put the blame on marketing.

[Maggan]

@Huber and Tomi

Ah, ok that could explain that it didn't sell well. :D

[Huber]

@Tomi:

The problem with Sony is that they are basically invisible to the "normal" customer.

I searched explicitly for a 10" tablet with Snapdragon 801, SD card support and 1920x1200 resolution back then, so I ended up with the Z2 tablet. If Samsung had offered such a device back then, I wouldn't even have considered Sony.

A friend wanted a small ~4" Android phone with high-end specs, so he ended up with a Z3 compact. But also only after searching for exactly such a device!

Sony's marketing should try to get some basic advantages into customer's minds. If they want to have success, regular customers should at least know:

- That Sony's Compacts share the hardware with their bigger brother, including SoCs and cameras - unlike the cheaper Galaxy Minis and other cheap Galaxy tablets

- That the 1200p 10" tablet resolution has advantages (3D performance, battery runtime) compared to the 1600p competition. Most customers just think that 1600p > 1200p and hence take the Samsung tablet instead.

- That Sony's Android version is close to stock, much closer than the bloated Samsung Touchwiz.

- That all devices come with an unlockable bootloader (as long as they are not branded by providers) and that Sony provides AOSP-versions for developers. I had to figure that out myself.

But all these advantages are worthless when nobody knows them.

[John A]

I hope Sony will remain in the smartphone business. I like the design and the features.
Dont realy like the new Samsung Galaxy S6 and the edge when they removed a lot from them from the previous S5 serie.
But I see a lot of TV commercials from Samsung and I guess it have a impact.

[Wayne Borean]

Sony ruined their reputation with the RootKit scandal. Yes, a lot of 'Average' buyers won't remember this, but your family geek, who you ask for a smartphone recommendation, will remember it, and suggest something else.

[Baron99]

I see the microsoft astroturfers are at it again ...pushing the ridiculous propaganda that windows phone will magically rise into the top ten. As we watch over the years of it sinking lower and lower and lower and lower. Please look at the older posts where the astroturfers were predicting it would be way up there in market share real soon. Let's see was that window 7 phone, or 8.0 or 8.0 or ...(how many iterations now of the "wait for" nonsense so far???? :-) ... but we know they are still waiting for Moore's law! ...too funny nonsense from our idiotic microsoft astroturfer. Year in and year out posting the same hopeless nonsense about windows phone inevitable sucess. Now that's REAL entertainment! Oh, in case you astroturfers haven't figured it out yet

NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE! :-)

[Baron99]

Windows 10 ...or how to get a dead machine. What a classy company :-) Find out more at:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2910469/keep-windows-10-preview-up-to-date-or-face-a-dead-pc.html

Another reason why: NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE!

[Baron99]

The astroturfer really loves shill for microsoft. It's sooooooo obvious that he is an astroturfer, real clever disguise (of course we all know that microsoft astroturfers are not very bright).

Let's see tick-tock, tick-tock ...and pretty soon his Coo-coo with come out LoL!

He keeps saying that windows phone will be relevant. - check

...and he always WRONG that windows phone is relevent - check

He been saying that windows phone will be relevant for years. - check

...and he always been WRONG FOR YEARS that windows phone is relevent - check

The astroturfer keeps saying that windows phone is good - check

...but Windows phone is a complex/buggy/expensive/insecure resource hog OS - check

He is still waiting for Moore's law - check

Of course the astroturfers have been spouting the microsoft propaganda for years and years and years ....must be ten years now! Pretty funny stuff from the guy tht's "all in" "waiting for" Moore's law :-)

Of course, the rest of us all know THE TRUTH:

NO ONE WANTS A WINDOWS PHONE! - CHECK!!!!!!! :-)

[chithanh]

@Baron95
> just to cherry-pick a few markets
FTFY

We just heard from Microsoft that Windows 10 for phones is going to come later than Windows 10 launch. Also not immediately available at launch, but scheduled for a later update will be the iOS/Android to Universal App compiler.

In other words, the whole Windows 10 thing will only start working as intended sometime late this year or early next year. And then mobile developers will still need to make necessary modifications and publish their apps, and they surely won't be in a rush to serve <3% of the market. And desktop developers are mostly going to ignore that thing because Universal Apps will not even run on the majority of Windows PCs.

Heck, Microsoft will give away Windows 10 left and right because nobody wants to pay for it.

Participate in the Beta program? Here, free Windows 10.
Running legit Windows 7 or 8? Here, free Windows 10.
Running non-genuine Windows 7 or 8? Here, free non-genuine Windows 10.
Have a Raspberry Pi? Here, free Windows 10.
Buy a device with 10.1" or smaller screen? Here, free Windows 10 and free Office 2016.
Running Windows RT? Haha, you are SOL. There will not even be a paid upgrade to Windows 10.

[RottenApple]

@chithanh:

"In other words, the whole Windows 10 thing will only start working as intended sometime late this year or early next year. And then mobile developers will still need to make necessary modifications and publish their apps, and they surely won't be in a rush to serve <3% of the market"

It's still a vast difference if you can just take the code, make some system specific changes, recompile and release as opposed to writing a new app from scratch.

Of course those heavily entrenched into their platform of choice won't case, but to be honest: If I could get an existing game ported with less than a week's work I might just do it. The biggest roadblock so far has been the lack of OpenGL that required weeks of added work to port a title.
Granted, the revenue stream on WP isn't the best, but if it stays in relation with the amount of work required it may just pay off to invest some time to port the 10 or so titles from last year that so far got shelved due to bad work-to-benefit ratio.

Will this save WP? I somehow doubt it. They's also have to reduce the submission bureaucracy so that releasing apps on WP becomes a non-issue in terms of work - that's when things will get interesting to watch. But there I have my doubts. And if that roadblock stays, not much will change.

But at least Microsoft has learned one crucial lesson, i.e. you cannot expect good developer support if your platform is so incompatible with everything else that porting to it becomes a hassle in itself.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

ZOMG! I'm agreeing with RottenApple! What's wrong with me?!?

[Henrik N]

Since the Windows Phone subject came up here. There is already some apps from ios and Android that are ported to the Windows phone store.
Candy Chrush Saga by King is one of them:

"Candy Crush for Windows Phone is actually an iOS game and we have all been playing it without even knowing. At Build 2015 Microsoft announced some new development tools that make the experience for Windows 10 developers easier, and one of them was the addition of Objective-C."

They have some tools to create webpages to apps to.
Even if Windows (phone) 10 coming late in the fall, they have already start to working with this.

So basicly Microsoft support all kind of developers with this.
Will it grow to number 2 in the smartphone/tablet field?

Only time will tell and I dont know.
But they are way ahed of Tizen, Blackberry, Firefox OS etc..

[Huber]

Since we have changed the subject here anyways:

This is just a desparate measure of Microsoft. Since almost nobody develops for their Windows Stores, they try to make conversion from iOS or Android easier.

This means that MS admits that they are in serious trouble. Also, like chithanh already pointed out, they try to giva away W10 for free to raise the installed base of Windows-store-enabled versions.

I don't think this will work. W10 on desktops/ notebooks needs Win32-programs for content creation, not some "Apps".

WP10 with iOS- and ANdroid-style apps will be a weird user experience: YOu have a few native apps which bevahe like WP does, then you have some apps which apply iOS- or Android-logic and hence look and feel different.

On Android, apps which are converted 1:1 from iOS look different, you notice this when you use them (e.g. a back-button somewhere in the app itself instead of support of Android's standard back-button).

ANd the final question is: Why should I buy a WP-phone to run iOS- or ANdroid-apps? Why not buying iOS or Android directly?

[RottenApple]

@Huber

"Since almost nobody develops for their Windows Stores, they try to make conversion from iOS or Android easier."

I'd have to agree about that - and I also do not think this will work for GUI based apps - but it might work for games which often come with their own individual user interface. And that part might actually work. As I said before, if an existing game can be ported just by recompiling and making a few adjustments, the likelihood of it actually getting ported is a lot higher than seeing a complete native rewrite.

And sometimes an inferior app may still be better than no app.

But if you look closer at Visual Studio 2015, it's obvious that they know they lost. To me it all looks like they did most of the work to support their own developers and reduce their dependence on outside development tools and just try to sugarcoat it by passing it off as innovation.

"I don't think this will work. W10 on desktops/ notebooks needs Win32-programs for content creation, not some "Apps". "

And I think here lies the biggest problem. They entirely focus on those stupid apps and forget to modernize Win32 and I have the feeling that this might eventually backfire miserably if they do not add proper touchscreen facilities there. Their entire touchscreen support seems to be geared toward the apps which nobody uses.

[Huber]

@Rotten:

"it might work for games which often come with their own individual user interface"

This is true. Casual Windows gamers could be a target. But then again, why buy WP or a Windows-tablet instead of directly using iOS or Android?

"They entirely focus on those stupid apps and forget to modernize Win32 and I have the feeling that this might eventually backfire miserably if they do not add proper touchscreen facilities there. Their entire touchscreen support seems to be geared toward the apps which nobody uses."

I agree - leaving your core market in the dust is not the most clever strategy.

[Winter]

@Huber
"Since almost nobody develops for their Windows Stores, they try to make conversion from iOS or Android easier."

What I do not understand that this was exactly the strategy that killed OS/2. Because OS/2 could run Windows applications, nobody found it necessary to develop for OS/2. As a result, OS/2 fell by the wayside and we are now stuck with Windows.

If WP can run iOS and Android apps, why develop WP apps?

[AndThisWillBeToo]

@Winter
"If WP can run iOS and Android apps, why develop WP apps?"

If BB10 can run Android apps, why develop BB10 apps?
If Sailfish OS can run Android apps, why develop Sailfish apps?

Tomi has told it numerous times how Sailfish, MeeGo, Meltemi and Tizen ALL have the HUGE advantage of being able to run Android apps and thus immediately "escape" the no apps syndrome.

But in case of Windows Phone it's different: It's bad for Microsoft, because unlike Jolla, Samsung (Tizen) or BlackBerry, MSFT uses their own OS and needs to lure developers to it, which all of the others don't. /s