Apple was responsible for 15% of the world’s smartphone shipments in 2013, and as much as 56% of all the profit. Sony, on the other hand, accounted for only 3.8% of the world’s smartphone shipments in 2013, and is barely ekeing out a profit company-wide.
Despite all of this, Sony mobile chief and European president Pierre Perron told The Inquirer that Apple is “missing out” by only releasing yearly iPhone freshes, instead of flooding the market with incremental updates every few months.
In essence, his argument is that users want to always be getting the phone with the most up-to-date technology, and the state of the art in smartphone technology moves rapidly enough that Sony feels that a few months is enough to take the luster off of the phone in a customer’s eyes.
“There is a cycle in the chipset market which can give us the opportunity to launch a new product more often than once a year,” Perron added. “This market is going very fast. Because mobile consumers are more demanding when it comes to entertainment experience, [they] want to access music, game experiences, faster [and] easier, in a more integrated way.”
As evidence, Perron pointed to the Xperia Z2, which is being released just five months after the Xperia Z1, Sony’s previous flagship device. To Perron, it’s all about Sony bringing “the best technology on the best platform” to customers and “to make sure our consumers aren’t disappointed in any way.”
If this were true, and Apple was leaving money on the tablet, you’d think Sony would be doing better in the smartphone market. The truth is that Apple knows that well-integrated software and hardware will always trump bleeding edge tech… which is exactly why Cupertino makes all the money in mobile.
Source: The Inquirer
