We’ve been talking a bunch lately about comments made by a Sony exec that the company was considering abandoning plans for lower-end smartphones in order to concentrate its efforts on the mid-to-high end of the market. This all comes from the words of Sony Mobile Xperia Product Marketing Manager Stephen Sneeden, but is this really official policy, or just some wishful thinking on Sneeden’s part? Well, who better to set the record straight than the CEO, and some recent comments made to reporters address this very issue.

Upon reading what CEO Kazuo Hirai had to say, we were initially concerned that some wires had gotten crossed, as Hirai explained that Sony was no longer interested in making feature phones, and its phone business would be Android-focused from here. Was that what was meant, that the move away from low-end wasn’t low-end smartphones, but from feature phones?

However, additional comments suggest that the original interpretation could still be correct, as Hirai explained, “we are more in toward the high end of the market as opposed to trying to get into the commoditized portion.”

Ultimately, it’s still less than completely clear if low-end Androids are totally done for at Sony, but it’s clear that the company’s focus is going to be more on models like the Xperia Z/ZL, than less attention-grabbing hardware.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
Via: Xperia Blog