Sony was always pretty good at being a designer and manufacturer of parts for other countries. So for them to get back to that is a good thing. They should probably drop the Xperia line and and move the resources to focus more on this as it is far more profitable for them.

So basically they make the cameras for their competitors....

Samsung do the same thing by providing all the memory for their competitors if I recall correctly

The XPERIA line is certainly improving in sales and I think it does actually make Sony some money

Sony is number 3 in smartphones and went from around 2,2 million units per quarter in 2010 to about 10 million right now and it's still growing. Xperia Honami on 4 september will be hit as well. 

I didnt think Sony was even in the top 5,  every sales report I find has LG, Huawei and ZTE in 3rd 4th and 5th place.  

My bad, they had 9.6 million units and they aimed to become third worldwide. I really thought they were third place already. 

they shouldn't drop the xperia line, as sales for the xperia line are SIGNIFICANTLY higher than a year ago... and continue to grow...

the z1 takes a dump on the s4

I'm sure the fact ZTE and LG have phones "smart phones" under 50 bucks without contract is a cause to this, and sony has only two smart phones in the U.S, one of which is not even being counted towards those stats since the XPERIA Z just came out in the states..

I'm sure by next year, sony will be #3, as the Z1 will be the most impressive android device one can get this holiday season

Ultimate troll. Making smartphones with the money of other smartphones manufacturers.

Nice played Sony.

that's great for them and they also don't have to fear that cams in phones will disappear in the future.

There are number 3, but only in certain markets, others have pointed out the true world wide facts