Sony insists Xperia phones are ‘very important’ to it

CFO Lin Tao mentioned Sony’s beleaguered phone brand at the company’s recent financial results presentation, calling it “a very important business for us,” according to CNET Japan.

You could have fooled me. Sony’s last two Xperia 1 flagships have skipped the US market entirely, and it appears to be pulling back in Europe too. It doesn’t even make the phones itself anymore, it axed the smaller Xperia 5 line two years ago, and so far there’s no sign of the cheaper Xperia 10 VII. Oh, and did I mention it had to halt sales of the new 1 VII and issue replacements for defective models?

Once upon a time, Xperia mattered to Sony because it still held a healthy chunk of Japan’s phone market. That’s no longer true, so if Xperia really is still important, I’m not sure why.