Sony Ericsson X10 Most Popular Smartphone on DoCoMo-Analyst

An analyst note from Barclay’s justified their upgrade of Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo’s stock by impressive performance of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. Apparently DoCoMo sold 120,000 X10s since it launched in April, a number they couldn’t even come close to with the HTC Magic, which launched last summer and only hit 80,000. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 and Toshiba TG01 mustered 60,000 sales each within similar timeframes, making the X10 DoCoMo’s top seller for April, and likely the top smartphone for a long time to come.

Smartphones are a tricky market in Japan, since so many of their dumbphones are mind-bogglingly smart – HVGA displays, 5 megapixel cameras and TV tuners on flip phones are not uncommon over there. It’s good to see at least one is making solid progress, but I do wonder what it is about the X10 that has managed to catch on over there. Is it the gigangtic 4″ screen? Maybe the custom TimeScape and MediaScape apps struck a chord in Japan that just doesn’t exist over here. Whatever the case, good on SE for the success – they need it if they want to compete with iPhone in Japan.

[PRLog via Xperia X10 Blog]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

myway

I posted most of this at Phandroid, but I'll add an extra point or two that I forgot to include.

It’s no mystery about the xperia's success, there were several factors at play.

1- most importantly, for the FIRST time, very catchy marketing for a smartphone on tv, reminiscent of the early ipod commercials that got everyone grooving to their own tunes. this kind of marketing had not been done for any of the other above-mentioned smartphones. Mediascape and Timescape were really pumped up in these commercials, too.Blackberries and all other smartphones at Docomo (the largest provider in Japan) had previously been only marketed to a limited segment of the (business)population, already saturated with incredibly capable “dumbphones.” The XPERIA, however, has been advertised as an everyman’s smartphone, whether it really is or not. I happen to think it is.

2- the name Sony attached to those commercials. regardless of their previous failings, Sony still carries weight here. HTC is a relative unknown, and while Samsung may be a little better known, it, well, I want to leave politics out of this post so maybe look in your history books for some of the reasons there.

3- Besides the gorgeous screen, it has a beautiful, different, non-generic, non-rounded , non-iphone-rip-off look. The HTC and Samsung phones I have seen these days all look like iphones. Actually I don’t know how much this matters. It mattered a bit to me. Anyway, the phone IS gorgeous.

4- the camera. It's a great point and shoot camera trapped in the body of a phone. I was looking for this exact kind of thing when I happened upon the Xperia. 8 megs. Japanese love their cameras. 5 megs these days just doesn't cut it. Sharp sells a lot of phones on their cameras alone.

I have the phone in question and love it, 1.6/no multitouch and all. Like MANY other buyers here it’s my first smartphone so these 2 factors mean nothing to me. In fact for inexperienced users like me pretty much all complaints I have seen on tech blogs mean nothing to me. For me it’s a beautiful toy, a stepping stone into the world of smartphones.

Considering these factors, it’s not really a mystery.

PS, I like your comment about "dumbphones." It's true, but just a couple of FYIs, many new "dumbphones" over here have not only 5 meg, but 10 meg cameras. My wife's Fujitsu has a 12 meg, with all the bells and whistles, and takes great photos, and very nice videos. Also, many of the newer TV tuner-attached phones have HD recording capabilities built in.
Simon Sage

Wow, thanks for the insight. It's hard to imagine what the market's like over there sometimes.