Report: Sprint to offer their very first Sony phone soon; Xperia Z3?
Take a quick stroll through Sprint’s history of phones and you’ll find that the company has never offered a single Sony Android smartphone. Ever. Shocking, isn’t it? That could change soon, though, as Reuters reports Sprint and Softbank will look to offer their first smartphone from Sony later this year. The exact wording was that this would be a “flagship smartphone,” and nothing sounds more flagship-y than Sony’s Xperia Z3 set to be unveiled at IFA next week.
The report didn’t specify whether the launch would be exclusive for Sprint which leaves hope that it could eventually make its way to other carriers. We wouldn’t bet on that, though, considering Sony doesn’t have a history of being able to get their smartphones onto multiple US carriers at a time like HTC, LG, Samsung and Motorola have been able to.
We’re certainly hoping that this is the first step to penetrating the US market with a more aggressive strategy, though, and that Sony could eventually reach the heights of their aforementioned competitors. The consumer electronics industry hasn’t exactly been friendly to Sony over the years with their struggling television and PC business havign drained them of a ton of money. They’ve gone as far as having to sell or spin-off some of those divisions and scale their business down.
Their smartphone business wasn’t in as immediate danger as those dollar-sucking entities (we imagine it’s much less expensive to develop, research and manufacture smartphones than TVs and computers), however it isn’t exactly strong enough alone to keep Sony in the black. Let’s hope this is a good first step toward changing that.