Sony phones are exiting the Chinese market. Japanese mobile phones can never break out of Japan after all.

Deeply Regrettable

When was the last time you saw a "Sony phone"?

Just two days ago, along with a cold message on WeChat saying "This account has been voluntarily deactivated and is no longer in use", Sony's official service account for Sony Xperia has been completely deactivated. And Sony Mobile's official Weibo account @Sony - Xperia hasn't been updated for more than half a year. The latest post was a holiday greeting on March 8th this year.

This means that Sony Xperia has stopped its promotion and marketing activities in China.

Even earlier, Sony's hardware business in China had already come to a halt. The last domestic - market Sony phone recorded on the official website of Sony China was the Xperia 5 V, which was a 2023 product.

It can be said that Sony's mobile phone business in mainland China has completely declined this November. Sony phones, at least in China, have probably truly died out.

After Half a Lifetime of Struggles, It's Still a Failure

Speaking of which, Sony, an 80 - year - old company integrating semiconductor manufacturing, film industry, virtual entertainment, and music media, the so - called company "holding the throat of the global film industry", has had problems making good phones for a long time.

Image | Android Authority

In fact, although Sony was one of the early participants in the mobile communication industry and achieved remarkable results in the feature phone era with the golden signs of Walkman and Cyber - shot, it has been constantly out of place in the smartphone era.

The turning point of all this was in 2007, which changed the direction of the mobile electronics market.

In 2007, not only did the iPhone come out, marking the beginning of the smartphone era in the general market perception, but it was also the most successful year for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (SEMC, hereinafter referred to as Sony Ericsson) after entering the mobile phone market.

That year, Sony Ericsson's W - series music phones, which transformed the Walkman brand, and the K and C - series camera phones, which transformed the Cyber - shot brand, dominated the feature phone market and achieved a record - high sales volume of 103 million units.

Sony Ericsson W800i, one of the most classic Walkman phones | TechRadar

However, after the peak came the trough. Looking back from today's perspective, Sony Ericsson's simple success with the W/K/C series actually left a long - lasting problem for Sony's mobile phone business: Overemphasis on the advantages brought by hardware while neglecting software adaptation.

On the other hand, like Nokia and Microsoft, Sony Ericsson ignored the huge potential of the iPhone in 2007 to "change the role of mobile phones in life". In 2011, Bert Nordberg, the then CEO of Sony Ericsson, admitted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal:

It's safe to say that Sony Ericsson should have paid more attention to the iPhone when it was launched in 2007.

However, even after realizing that the wave of smartphones was irreversible, Sony Ericsson's efforts to catch up were not decisive enough.

In the years after the iPhone, Sony Ericsson was caught between iPhoneOS, Windows Mobile, and Android. It tried various models from the Xperia X10 to the Xperia S, P, U, T, J, E, etc., re - enacting the script of "a feature - phone giant struggling in the smartphone era".

This kind of product line appears when a company doesn't know what it's doing | Medium

A new turning point occurred in 2012.

That year, Sony officially acquired the 50% stake in Sony Ericsson held by Ericsson, fully integrating Sony Ericsson into the Sony Group as a subsidiary and establishing Sony Mobile Communications (SMC, hereinafter referred to as Sony Mobile).

More importantly, this acquisition not only gave Sony complete control of the mobile phone business but also integrated the Xperia product line into the "One Sony" strategy of Kazuo Hirai, the then CEO of the Sony Group.

Kazuo Hirai, often affectionately called "Uncle" | CNET

Judging from the products in the early years after the merger of Sony Mobile, Kazuo Hirai's One Sony strategy achieved some results. In 2013, Sony launched the Xperia Z at CES, a product that established the design style of the Xperia family.

In addition to the timeless Omnibalance design language, the Xperia Z was also a representative of the One Sony technology alliance at that time. Technologies from Bravia in TVs to Exmor in sensors could be found in the Xperia Z. Not to mention the pioneering IP55/57 dual - protection standards, which laid the foundation for the Xperia's later reputation as a "triple - proof flagship".

Image | TheNextWeb

The market also gave positive feedback to the Xperia Z.

After the merger and reorganization, Sony Mobile's annual mobile phone sales increased from about 33 million units in the 2012 fiscal year to about 39.9 million units in the 2013 fiscal year and reached a peak of about 40 million units in the 2014 fiscal year.

However, these 40 million Xperia phones were not the beginning of Sony Mobile's rise to the peak but rather the peak right from the start. Moreover, in the global smartphone market at that time, this was a negligible number. In 2014, Sony's global mobile phone market share was only 2%. It couldn't even compare with Xiaomi and Huawei, which were expanding rapidly in the global market at that time, and its sales were less than half of LG's mobile phone sales at that time.

According to the statistical method of domestic brands, it was already in the "Others within Others" category.

Sony, not qualified to compete | Dazeinfo

In 2016, after Sony shifted from the Z series to the X/XZ series, the market had already evolved without Sony.

On the one hand, Apple and Samsung, with their patent moats and supply - chain protection, firmly controlled the global high - end market. Although the Xperia was expensive, it could never link its price with brand influence and enter the high - end market.

On the other hand, 2016 saw the explosive growth of domestic mobile phones. With their proactive overseas expansion strategies, domestic brands quickly occupied the mid - and low - end markets where Sony Mobile rarely participated. As a result, Sony Mobile, along with other old brands like LG and HTC, was squeezed in the middle.

After that, the Xperia XZ series could never get out of the shadow. According to data from statistical agencies, from 2015 to 2019, in just four years, Sony's mobile phone sales dropped from about 25 million units to just over 3 million units, an 80% decline.

Although the products of the XZ generation were well - received, in terms of sales trends, it was undoubtedly the biggest setback in Sony's mobile phone - making history.

After that, we heard that Sony Mobile announced that it would abandon the goal of "pursuing sales volume and market share" and instead "focus on profitability" - in other words, "I'm going to focus on making money".

Since 2019, Sony has successively launched the new Xperia 1/5/10 series, which is said to be an "integration and restart of the product line". The product range has been reduced from a mixed bag to simply "large - size, medium - size, and small - size" models.

From the new Xperia digital series, we can see Sony's very clear strategic transformation: from the previous Z, X, XZ series targeting the mass consumer market to targeting the pure high - end "ultra - professional user market", aiming to make the Xperia the second movie - making device in the pockets of photographers and directors.

For example, the Xperia Pro - I, which shares a 1 - inch sensor with the RX100 series | TechRadar

This strategy seems very correct at first glance, not to mention that it can more intuitively showcase the technical capabilities of the Alpha, Bravia, and CineAlta departments. However, the market taught Sony a lesson in the same way it taught RED Hydrogen One: Mobile phones, as a product form, don't need to be overly professional.

Even in the era of the new Xperia digital series, Sony still couldn't organically combine the various professional functions on the Xperia phones into a complete mobile workflow that could leverage its own advantages.

For example, the Master Camera app that forcibly simulates changing camera lenses without allowing continuous zoom

At this stage, Sony seems to have completely lost its way and can't figure out the relationship between hardware and software.

Sony's attempt to cooperate with Meizu in 2021 is a perfect example. The Xperia, which "has everything but software", and Flyme, which "has everything but hardware", could have been a perfect match, but it ended up with just adding a negative - one screen and an app market.

The final result was even worse than directly installing the Flyme system on the Xperia | Coolapk @JianpoLanKeji

Meizu may just be bad at handling hardware, but Sony is the one who lacks both the courage to make a drastic change and the determination to change the course. After that, it's no surprise that Sony Xperia has been struggling in the "ultra - professional mobile phone" niche market.

Finally, in 2021, Sony Mobile ended its independent operation and was incorporated into the electronics products department of the Sony Group. With a market share of less than 1% in the international market and less than 6% in the Japanese domestic market, it barely survived until 2