14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has just introduced two new high-end smartphones at Mobile World Congress (MWC), the Xperia XZs and Xperia XZ Premium. Both devices will be launched in the United States in the coming months, but they will lack one major feature that will be available in all other markets: fingerprint reader.
Although the Xperia phones launched earlier this week by Sony are fitted with fingerprint readers, they will be disabled for users in the United States.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time it happens and as much as we'd like to believe there's nothing bad happening at the top of Sony's chain of command, we can't help but think that this is a very stupid decision.
The good news is that we've finally managed to learn more about the reason behind Sony's unusual decision to disable fingerprint scanners on all its Xperia devices sold in the United States.
The folks over at AndroidCentral asked Don Mesa, Head of Marketing, North America for Sony Mobile, about the exclusion of fingerprint authentication on the Xperia XZ Premium, so here is what he had to say:
“There are a lot of external and internal factors that contribute to us making a conscious decision not to include [fingerprint].” He further went on to say “that was very much about us consciously deciding that we want to continue our business here [in the U.S.], and [that's] one of the conditions for us to be able to do business.”
But that doesn't really answer the question, so when pressed for more insight on the matter, Mesa admitted that his company had difficulties with US carriers, which forced Sony to transition from selling carrier-backed phones to unlocked ones.
Although Mesa did not want to name any carriers, it appears that Sony may have signed an agreement with one of them that didn't allow it to sell smartphones with fingerprint sensors in the United States unless certain conditions were met.
Well, it looks like that deal has gone really bad and Sony is now forced to disable fingerprint authentication on its Xperia devices if it wants to continue selling these products in the United States. Hmm, who would have thought?