Sony: No more feature phones, Android is our future
A little over a month ago, Sony announced that it was purchasing Ericsson’s stake in the Sony Ericsson joint venture for €1.05 billion. After the announcement, it was not immediately clear which direction Sony would take in the mobile phone market. Sony Ericsson produced a wide array of mobile devices, from low-end feature phones to the high-end smartphones.
It appears Sony has been actively working on a business model for the now-wholly owned subsidiary in a post-Ericsson world. India-based Economic Times is reporting that the Sony Ericsson line of devices will be phased by mid-2012. In its place, Sony will be focusing its mobile division around Android, and will release Android smartphones under the Sony name.
Though Sony Ericsson devices have a decent 12% worldwide Android smartphone market share, it has yet to find a solid footing for its Xperia line of devices in the United States. With Sony Mobile’s decision to move away from the feature phone market and focus exclusively on Android smartphones, we may see that picture change a bit in coming years.
With Sony’s commitment to bringing the latest version of Android to all of it’s 2011 smartphones, as well as its support for the development community, the company is certainly becoming one of our favorite Android manufacturers. We hope that with their renewed focus on Android that Sony will start making devices that people actually want, and that we’ll see their market share grow in the U.S.
Via: Android and Me
