International electronics giant Sony on Friday unveiled its latest flagship model in its Xperia line of smartphones in Chennai. The company said the new Xperia Z1 , which combined the functionality of the Sony Cybershot range of digital cameras with a smartphone, was aimed at bolstering the target of doubling its market share in smartphones in the current fiscal year. The Chennai launch of the Xperia Z1 was more an all-out push of the phone’s 20.7 megapixel camera than of any of the other capabilities of the device. Coming a distant second in the projection of capabilities were the phone’s display and the entertainment bundle.
“The phone is essentially about the design, which Sony is famous for, the camera and content availability for entertainment,” said Sachin Rai, business head of Sony India’s Xperia division. He added that Sony had placed the combined weight of its many other wings such as those dealing in music, movies and television to make a wide range of content available for entertainment. “Sony is the only company that can easily bring quality movies, TV and music content to smartphones thanks to its presence in all of these markets. There is no other brand in the smartphone market that can offer this. The importance of making quality content available only increases as people continue to use smartphones for a wider range of activities,” said Rai.
He also unveiled Sony’s QX range of Bluetooth-connect cameras, which were designed to act as add-on, external cameras, and a host of other accessories that were designed to work with devices running the Android platform. Rai said these releases were Sony’s way of keeping pace with the speed of innovation, and also part of the company’s strategy to release new products every six months. These were part of the company’s strategy to increase its smartphone market share from 10 percent in 2012-13 to 20 percent in 2013-14. The Sony Xperia Z1 has been priced at `44,990, and comes with a bundling of a leather case and a 5000 mAh portable charger.