Sony's Mobile Division Is Losing More than the Gaming Division Is Making

Megalith

Megalith

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Sony’s latest quarterly earnings report suggests that the Japanese giant’s mobile division is “dead weight”: while the gaming portion impressed with a year-over-year increase of about $317 million, the mobile team “lost over $480 million as compared to fiscal Q2 of the previous year.” Some say the Xperia brand is on its last legs.

While Sony Mobile isn’t likely to be shut down any time soon, the company can only sustain supporting the division at losses like this for so long before it will have to make some hard decisions. After all, even though making over $1 billion more in a quarter as compared to the prior year is good news, it’s not nearly as good when you find out half of it will go to keep a struggling division afloat.
 
Has there been a point in the last decade when Sony Mobile wasn't floundering?

I mean, Sony is who HTC points to in bad quarters while saying, "Well, could be worse..."
 
I bought a z3c, it was exactly what I wanted spec wise, but the back glass cracked the second day while in my pocket, and the screen cracked the first time I dropped it 2 weeks later, while in a case. I went back to cheap phones after that.
 
I got an XA...really nice. But under-powered and only lasted about one year. Replaced it with a motorola nexus 6, will see how long it lasts...
 
I'm still on my galaxy s5 and i considerd the Xperia. Thank heaven i didn't. Sony of old is long since gone.
 
I have an xperia xa2 ultra. It is a good phone but the camera is an absolute piece of shit. I have 4 to 6 yesr old phones with better cameras.
 
I'm frankly surprised the Xperia still even exists. Haven't seen one in years.
 
harbingerofdoom said:
had a friend that bought an xperia very late last year, spent all their free money on it. it was SO crappy that me and a couple other people felt pretty bad and all pitched in and bought them an s8.

i like being involved in making people cry. lol
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I would use a xperia phone than a S8.... Rather have a usable phone than a phone that is barely usable.
 
I see Xperia's on the train all the time in Tokyo. Sony sort of gets itself into trouble because there is huge brand loyalty and I suppose a type of pride in them over here. So they make a product and it does sort of ok in Japan but then just crashes and burns globally and they can't figure out why.
 
Their phones always have great camera sensors in them but the software implementation for the camera always lets them down. I really don't see how they can make such good DSLR's but then fail to get the software right for their mobile part.

I much prefer the sony android skin over the samsung skin. The samsung skin still has an insane amount of bloat. I have a soft spot for the HTC sense skin but I moved back to an iphone since turning off google's data mining in android is too troublesome.
 
The only phone I can remember that they really kicked ass with was the 810i, which at the time had better than pocket camera picture quality and could actually play movies! not that you wanted to, since it had a 1.7" screen... lol but they also had superior media play back too!

In typical Sony fashion though, it NEVER took off since everything was so handcuffed by the Sony proprietary "ass-fuckery" everywhere. I really liked that phone, my kids still play with it, acting like it still works (battery broke, Sony wanted $60 for a 5 year old battery...).
 
Same that they're floundering, they seem to be the only manufacturer making full-featured "small" phones anymore. If you can call something with a 5" screen "small".
 
I have an xperia xz1 compact. I've used it for a year now without too much problem. It was $400 with galaxy 8 specs, has audio jack and sd card slot, and a small screen which makes for great battery life. The wifi can act up and forget networks, and needs a reboot to fix it which is annoying. but otherwise it's a nice phone with great audio and nice camera. It gets monthly security updates and it will get the Android P update this month. It's too bad Sony is terrible about advertising it and pricing it correctly. The phone is not for everyone, but it works fine for me.
 
Google should get Sony to make the hardware for Pixels. Then we would have quality control that doesn't suck, and timely updates.
 
zehoo said:
I really don't see how they can make such good DSLR's but then fail to get the software right for their mobile part.
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They haven't made DSLRs in quite some time- and their DSLTs are getting left behind.

And they've never been able to make software. Their mirrorless Alpha cameras are regularly derided by that, in addition to the lack of ergonomic forethought, despite the rather impressive technology and optical prowess they endow their cameras and lenses with.
 
Android phones in general are dead. Their CPUs are decidedly midrange or even low end compared to what Apple offers.
 
SickBeast said:
Android phones in general are dead. Their CPUs are decidedly midrange or even low end compared to what Apple offers.
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Superior hardware doesn't always matter. I am not sure on the current standing of apple cpus vs the other brands, however Beta max vs VHS comes to mind. The greatest hardware doesn't always end up the victor when price gets involved.
 
shansoft said:
I would use a xperia phone than a S8.... Rather have a usable phone than a phone that is barely usable.
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okay, well, i have zero problems with my s8, the other people involved in what we did had zero problems with theirs, the person whos experia was crappy as all hell has had zero problems with theirs.... so.... dunno what to tell you there bud.
 
Spun Ducky said:
Superior hardware doesn't always matter. I am not sure on the current standing of apple cpus vs the other brands, however Beta max vs VHS comes to mind. The greatest hardware doesn't always end up the victor when price gets involved.
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There is also the fact that Android apps are written in Java which makes them slower computationally and also way less memory efficient.
 
Gets out hand to count number of Sony phones I've seen in the wild... /puts hand away.

Time to give up Sony.
 
Acually Sony does some pretty good looking phones. My old mid range Xperia I got in 2013 still works flawlessly.
 
SickBeast said:
There is also the fact that Android apps are written in Java which makes them slower computationally and also way less memory efficient.
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There is also the culture of "using it wrong"
 
Sony went from awesome quality to crap then the sold out their name for placement on generic crap.
 
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