Sony Claims Third Place in Smartphone Market
Struggling trio RIM, Nokia and HTC makes way for Sony's jump in popularity.
Sony has jumped three places in the global smartphone sales rankings, trailing behind technology titans Samsung and Apple. According to new research from IDC, the Japanese technology company was the third place manufacturer in Q3, 2012. Comparatively, Sony settled for sixth place during the same period in 2011.
Achieving third place saw Sony overtake the struggling trio of RIM, Nokia and HTC. Sony's market share actually fell year-on-year from 5 percent in 2011 to 4.8 percent in 2012. Nokia saw its market share of 13.6 percent in 2011 decrease to just 3.4 percent this year. HTC, meanwhile, dropped from 10.3 percent to 4.6 percent, with RIM dropping from 9.6 percent to 4.2 percent.
Elsewhere, Samsung reported a considerable increase from 22.7 percent to 31.3 percent, while Apple's share jumped from 13.8 to 14.6 percent.
As for Sony's smartphone plans for 2013, the company expects to sell 50 million Xperia handsets, while it's also preparing the rumored 1080p "Odin" device and the 5-inch "Yuga".

The GPU in the Vita is still pretty powerful by mobile standards. It's comparable to the SGX543MP4 found in the iPad 3, while also having to drive far fewer pixels. The Vita uses this extra horsepower to enable anti-aliasing, something we don't really see in the tablet arena yet.
The Vita is a good console, Sony has just been making bad decisions with it. Card locking and expensive proprietary storage/accessories are just a few. Everything about the Vita just screams paranoia over anti-piracy.
Maybe it's just me but I can't stand those cooperate people at Sony.
The Vita is a good console, Sony has just been making bad decisions with it. Card locking and expensive proprietary storage/accessories are just a few. Everything about the Vita just screams paranoia over anti-piracy.
ya, but u dont need AA when you got over 300ppi on a screen... you dont need to blend pixel edges when u cant even see em.
I bet if someone went to a AT&T/Sprint/Verison/etc. store and wanted to buy an Xperia they would look at them like they were crazy and try to get them to buy something else instead.
Can a phone be water resistant? Sony = yes, Iphone = No
Can u operate underwater? Sony = Yes, Iphone = No
Which phone look sexier? Sony
Which one is cheaper? Sony
I wish people here would stop having this view. more powerful =/= better for gaming. and I believe its a given that for most hardcore games, buttons>>>>>>>touchscreen. sony already tried to do hardcore gaming phone(xperia play), but they didnt support as well as they should have and let it die. a note 2 may be more powerful, but is it better for gaming? no...
I actually didnt expect sony to be anywhere near the top. I havent seen a sony phone in ages. actually thought htc was closer to iphone and samsung.