Sony may have done something this year that Samsung already did last year and had the strategy backfiring against the Korean tech company that made it also lose its grip on the title of being the world’s largest smartphone maker.
The Japanese smartphone maker has just launched the Sony Xperia Z4 in Japan and from the looks of its latest flagship smartphone, it offered very little improvements from its predecessor, the Sony Xperia Z3.
This was the same route taken by Samsung last year when it launched the Samsung Galaxy S5 that hardly offered any major improvements from 2013’s Samsung Galaxy S4. Instead of drawing interests from users, the Samsung Galaxy S5 somehow turned off consumers resulting to less-than-expected sales performance.
The below par sales output of the Samsung Galaxy S5 for the most part of last year had Samsung reeling from the debacle and allowing Apple to overtake it as the world’s largest smartphone maker last year. That is why, the Korean tech company worked really hard with its latest Samsung Galaxy S6 in order to seek redemption from its misgiving last year.
Happy with Xperia Z3
On the case of Sony, despite reports that its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z4, is reportedly to be launched and subsequently rolled out to the retail markets this year, the Japanese company has denied it. Instead, it just said that it is still very happy with the Xperia Z3 so getting it updated soon with a new flagship handset is not in its drawing boards.
Apparently, the denial was meant to keep everything under wraps so when the Sony Xperia Z4 was launched in Japan on April 21, everyone was nearly caught by surprise.
Unfortunately for Sony however, the Xperia Z4 turns out not at all different from the Xperia Z3 except for a new processor and some tweaks made on the front-facing camera, notes Know Your Mobile
The Japanese company has been criticized in the past for its incremental updating of its Xperia Z flagship brand. Those criticisms seem to have fallen on deaf ears as Sony continued to launch smartphones into the market that is all too similar from what has come immediately before it.
Lackluster flagship revamp
Sony has obviously made a lackluster revamp of its flagship smartphone and the strategy will surely make it lose to competition.
The good news for Sony is that it is not alone with the strategy as Taiwanese tech company HTC may be in the same boat since its latest flagship smartphone HTC One M9 hardly offered any groundbreaking improvements compared to its predecessor, the HTC One M8.
This development would surely be a downer since Sony already has a niche market for its flagship smartphones and a less-than-satisfactory new flagship may further trim its market share and perhaps see losses eventually.
In a recent pronouncement, Sony’s CEO said that he would be willing to sell off the company’s mobile device business unit if it continues to register poor sales growth.