Sony’s smartphone strategy was murky, but it’s getting clearer



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On the same day that Sony announced the Alpha 1 powerhouse, it also revealed its latest Xperia phone. Although it is technically a smartphone, it is functionally something else.

It’s easy to look at the Sony Xperia Pro and wonder what Sony is even thinking. To understand what got them to this point, it’s important to watch their story on handheld computers.

Sony makes fantastic smartphones, but the strategy behind these phones has been confusing and, arguably, detrimental to the phones’ commercial success. As a result, those who would like to take advantage of Sony’s Xperia devices and actively seek them out are only a tiny fraction of the overall smartphone market.

Such a shine that the devices account for around 0% of the smartphone market share in the United States.

That’s, admittedly, odd considering how the company has produced devices that, on paper, look great. Previous devices have expandable storage, wireless charging, high-resolution 4K displays, a headphone jack, water resistance, and a high-end processor. Beyond that, it offers settings that promise better color accuracy for shooting and viewing content, as well as Sony’s top-level camera features such as full manual control and The company’s legendary autofocus features.

And that can’t be overstated: As much as other companies like Samsung and Apple have great smartphone cameras, these sensors are made by Sony, and Sony makes high-end full-size cameras. They to have the camera market, and these features are fairly faithfully reproduced in the Xperia range.

Yet despite all of this, the company just doesn’t sell a lot of its cameras, and that’s where the “strategy” part comes in. Sony treats its smartphones like it treats its cameras: it makes an announcement, then wait a while until this camera becomes available. This gap between hype and availability takes the wind out of the way completely, to the point that when phones are finally available, the general public has even forgotten they exist.

Add to that that Sony spends hardly any dollars to market the phones until and during their releases. It’s incredibly easy to not know that Sony phones exist because of this.

I think another issue is that Sony’s smartphone division is kind of overlapping with its cameras division and who it sends the products to and the way it markets the phones is very similar to how the company does. handles full-size camera outputs. It works for the camera niche, but not for the mainstream smartphone market.

However, Sony now appears to have embraced this issue with open arms. The last phone, the Xperia PRO, has stopped trying to be a phone. Instead of trying to be a mainstream device like other smartphones, it’s now all-in-one in the professional camera market as a photo and video accessory. Because the company no longer tries to create a device for all smartphone users and is now focused on creating a device specific to a very specialized niche, there actually appears to be an appropriate strategy in play. .

The Xperia Pro is essentially the refurbished Xperia 1 Mark II to take advantage of niche features even more than ever before. It’s not a device anyone looking to buy a phone would consider, and it seems to be on purpose.

In the video above, Marques Brownlee argues that in a market flooded with products bearing the “pro” name, this is the only device that really deserves it. While many devices use the term Pro for premium sound, the Xperia Pro is in fact, arguably, a legitimate business tool.

The main feature of the device, about which you can learn more about PetaPixel’s the coverage here is its HDMI input and connectivity with full-size cameras. It has the ability to use 5G signals (and monitor signal strength) to transmit photos and video from field cameras to a central location for distribution.

Basically, it’s a 4K HDR monitor with a built-in 5G modem.

If you look at Sony’s marketing images, not a single image shows that it is used as a camera or a phone.

So, whereas before no one considered a Sony phone due to a confusing strategy and bad marketing, Sony apparently turned this “bug” into a “feature”. The company never planned to sell a lot of Xperia 1 Mark II phones and I find it hard to think of that changing with the Xperia Pro. But at least this time, it feels by design rather than coincidence. It actually sounds like a solid strategy.



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