Sony insists Xperia phones are ‘very important’ to it

This year's Xperia 1 VII has been plagued by problems.

CFO Lin Tao mentioned Sony's beleaguered phone brand at the company's recent financial results presentation, calling it a very important business for us," according to CNET Japan.

You could have fooled me. Sony's last two Xperia 1 flagships have skipped the US market entirely, and it appears to be pulling back in Europe too. It doesn't even make the phones itself anymore, it axed the smaller Xperia 5 line two years ago, and so far there's no sign of the cheaper Xperia 10 VII. Oh, and did I mention it had to halt sales of the new 1 VII and issue replacements for defective models?

Once upon a time, Xperia mattered to Sony because it still held a healthy chunk of Japan's phone market. That's no longer true, so if Xperia really is still important, I'm not sure why.