Sony Mobile to stop selling feature phones in India from September

Sony Mobile is all set to exit the feature phone segment in India. The handset vendor is set to retire its range of Walkman and other feature phones from September and will focus only on its smartphones, which it retails under the Xperia sub-brand, according to The Economic Times.
Sony Mobile has managed to create a niche for its smartphones and has been aggressively increasing its portfolio, often undercutting rivals by offering smartphones like the Xperia U that has a dual-core processor at Rs 16,000. Last week the company launched the Xperia Go and announced plans to launch the Neo L and Xperia Ion in coming weeks.
Rather than going high on hardware specifications like Samsung and HTC, Sony has opted to go for experiences and has products targeted for niche audiences rather than having generic products. The Xperia Go, for instance, is a sleek weather proof smartphone while the Ion will be the high-end Android smartphone with a 12-megapixel camera that will compete with the likes of the Galaxy S III and the HTC One X – smartphones that claim to be the flagship for Android platform when it comes to raw hardware specifications.
The real challenge for Sony Mobile, however, would be to ensure a smartphone portfolio that manages to trickle down to sub-Rs 15,000 segment, where we are witnessing a lot of action from first-time smartphone buyers.