In 2012, the strong sales performance of Samsung Galaxy SIII in Japan became a crucial milestone for Samsung. The South Korean company managed to crack the major mobile market of Japan which was traditionally hostile toward imported brands. However, this year, an unexpected reversal of fortune transpired.
Japanese dominant carrier DoCoMo decided to remove Samsung from its promotional line-up for the forthcoming winter. The move was due to Samsung's failure to meet DoCoMo's summer sales target. The sales of Samsung Galaxy S4 missed the aim by 30%. During the summer, around 1.3 million units of Sony's Xperia A were sold by DoCoMo whereas only 700,000 Samsung Galaxy S4 were sold. DoCoMo announced that it would use the smartphones of Fujitsu, Sharp and Sony for the company's winter marketing drive.
Sony reported a net profit of JPY3.5 billion during the second quarter of this year. The figure reversed the company's loss of JPY24.6 billion in 2012. Sony said its sales rose by 13%. The growing popularity of its Xperia smartphones led to an increase in its sales forecast for the fiscal year 2013 to JPY7.9 trillion from its JPY7.5 trillion projection in May.
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