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Sony gunning for third place in the global smartphone market by 2014

When it comes to making their mind up, Sony consistently seem to run into difficulty, turning their oil tanker of a company around to follow a new path and as we get into 2013, it looks as though it’s Sony Mobile’s turn to about face and change tact, hopefully before we hit 2014.

In a Tokyo roundtable earlier this week, Sony Mobile’s Kunimasa Suzuki, who we’d seen just last week announcing the Sony Xperia Tablet Z in Barcelona was cited as stating that the company will be completely rethinking their device strategy going forward in order to help propel them into the number three spot globally on the list of top mobile manufacturers.

Sony Mobile's Kunimasa Suzuki
Kunimasa says that going forward, Sony Mobile will be focusing on low-end rather than high-end smartphones

According to Reuters, Mr Suzuki said that his company will alter their device strategy in various markets across the world, switching from their current pursuit in making high-end handsets (like the new Sony Xperia Z) to pushing a greater focus on entry-level and low-end devices; a trend which they will likely kick off with the arrival of their upcoming Firefox OS-based phone.

By the end of Q4 2012, Sony ranked fourth in the global smartphone market behind Apple and Samsung (who account for more than half of the overall mobile market combined) and Chinese mobile manufacturer Huawei who have also built their business on affordable Android smartphones. They still lead against another Chinese rival; ZTE, but hope that this new strategy will see them switch places with Huawei once new, cheaper devices hit the market over the next few months.

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