The phone gamers have been waiting for is expected to be released in April: Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play, a PlayStation Android phone. The phone will be offered by Verizon Wireless and will be a full features smartphone that has controls for games. It will have a touch screen, devoted gaming buttons, shoulder buttons and an analog touch joystick.
The Xperia Play will also have stereo sound and provides support for multi-player gaming, the ability to connect to WiFi, and it will have a new interface, various keyboard improvements, and will be able to access more than 100,000 applications.
No one is certain as to how this will affect Sony Ericsson’s position in the smart phone market.
Last month it came out that Apple was ahead of Sony Ericsson and Motorola last year, as Apple’s sales of mobile phones were better than 2.9 percent of the entire global market. The numbers showed that Apple sold 46.6 million units in 2010, which was a growth of 87.2 percent from 2009, during which it sold 24.9 million.
The growth was purported to be the result of Apple’s expansion into new countries and the end of its exclusive sales policies, which made it possible for the iPhone to be sold through 185 communication service providers (CSPs) across the globe. They are expected to continue that growth this year, especially since the launch of the Verizon iPhone.
Overall, worldwide cell phone sales equaled 1.6 billion in 2010, which is up 31.8 percent from 2009, and sales of smart phones went up 72.1 percent and accounted for 19 percent of total cell phone type sales.
Nokia is still on top for total cell phone sales, having sold 461 million and garnering 28.9 percent of the market. That figure was a 7.5 percent drop in their market share in 2009, and its smart phone share also dropped 6.7 percent.
