Could Sony Mobile's business spell doom for the Xperia XZ4? Probably not

There are reports of Sony Mobile stores closing down in a number of countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asian regions, with speculation that increasing pressure from mainly Chinese manufacturers is severely hampering the subsidiary’s business strategy in those areas. It wasn’t that long ago similar reports were published about Sony Mobile’s ventures in Turkey and Africa. Vultures have been circling Sony Mobile’s involvement in the smartphone market for some time now, so could this new rumor spell doom for the expected Xperia XZ4?

The simple answer is “probably not.” Sony’s mobile division has been staggering on the brink of death for years. In 2007, the company reported decent smartphone sales of over 103 million; the unit sales forecast for 2018 is 7 million. To give some perspective to those figures, Samsung sold over 321 million smartphones in 2017. It would take a miracle for Sony to catch up to that kind of sales figure; not even a glorious triple-camera wielding Xperia XZ4 with a ridiculously tall frame, Snapdragon 855 SoC, and 21:9 screen ratio could fix this problem.

So if Sony Mobile is winding up some operations, why is it likely the world will still be able to bask in the glow of the eventual revelation of the XZ4? It seems executives at Sony have long accepted that the company’s phones won’t be raking in truckloads of cash – after all, the big smartphone sales aren’t that important when Apple, Samsung, Google, Huawei, and others use Sony's image sensors in their devices. According to The Motley Fool, around half of all smartphones around the world feature a Sony sensor. With that kind of component domination, Sony can afford to relax a little when it comes to smartphone sales.

Invitations for a Sony event at MWC 2019 have started going out, and of course, there will be many hoping for a full unveiling of the rumored Xperia XZ4. The event is scheduled for February 25.

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