It’s official. Even though we figured it out months ago, Sony has formally announced that they have “deprioritised” Australia as a market for their Xperia line of Mobile devices.
At an investor day, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida confirmed that they would be focusing their attention on four key markets Japan, Europe, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
We’re not terribly surprised, sadly. Sony’s Australian market share never really took off, despite some good devices, and with their sales dwindling in recent years the decision seemed almost inevitable. Most of us here are old enough to have owned an original WalkMan, then a Discman when they were new, so we’re sad to see Sony Mobile and the Xperia brand leave our shores. There are those amongst us who have fond memories of Sony’s Xperia Z3 series – including the flagship phone, the Z3 Compact, and even the Z3 Tablet Compact.
The big question is, with Google slowly gaining popularity in the Android handset space, and Samsung’s market dominance, will Sony be the last OEM to pull out of our market? With Huawei’s future currently uncertain there may just be room in the Australian market for a few more players in the near future.
