I can give you credit for that, as ZTE, Oneplus (I believe both of which are available or were recently available at T-Mobile), and Xiaomi probably have growing demand rates faster than Sony's dwindling demand rate, so it was definitely worth mentioning them. But here's what I don't understand: why not Sony? This was by far Sony's best year for phones technology-wise, probably trying to get back in the game after both T-Mobile and Verizon dropped them. That doesn't exempt Sony from by far exceeding in many of those categories with their 2016 line of phones.
But let's face it; we're never going to leave the oligopoly that's been so heavily established, whether it's in regard to carriers or manufacturers. I just remember walking into a T-Mobile store and seeing the abundance in phones, but the last time I walked into one I'm pretty sure I saw a tumbleweed drift across the room. That's a sign of not only manufacturers leaving the industry, but also carriers. Either that or it's cyclical and Motorola will make a comeback in 3 years.
Even HTC is slowly drifting away.
I feel like the elephant in the room is the difference between the western and eastern markets
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I agree Sony make great phones, they always have done. MKBHD doesn't ignore them either, he's done videos in the past including this one
here. I think the problem with Sony is that their phones are too mid-tier. They don't have as high specs as something like the Pixel or the S7, but they always have a much more reasonable price. At the same time they aren't the cheapest smartphones out there, if I wanted a budget phone I'd more likely go for something like a OnePlus. I feel like while they aren't really the best in any one category, they are the best at having that balance between price and quality.
After looking at some of their phones the XA Ultra looks to be a pretty nice budget phone. I do think Sony deserve more sales and I'm not sure why they've been doing so poorly recently.