Sony

Sony sells a smaller number of phones than almost anyone else in this directory and has stayed in the market anyway, which tells you what the Xperia line is for. It is built for people who want the things the mainstream stopped offering: manual camera controls borrowed from the Alpha camera business, a headphone socket, a microSD slot, and a tall screen aimed at video.

The phones sit inside a much larger company. Sony makes cameras, professional broadcast equipment, audio, and the PlayStation consoles; it runs a film studio and a record label; and it is the largest supplier of the image sensors inside other manufacturers' phones, including some of its competitors'.

The company was founded in May 1946 in Tokyo by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The two had met during the war as engineers.

Who owns Sony? Sony Group Corporation is a public company. Its shares trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and its American depositary shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SONY. No single shareholder controls it: the biggest names on its register are trust banks and custodians holding shares on behalf of other investors.

What does Sony own? PlayStation, through Sony Interactive Entertainment; Sony Pictures; Sony Music; Crunchyroll, the anime streaming service, which Sony bought from AT&T for 1.175 billion dollars in a deal completed on 9 August 2021; the image sensor business; and the Xperia, Alpha camera and audio ranges. PlayStation, Sony Xperia and Sony Alpha and Audio each have their own page on Brandligo.

One recent change is worth knowing. Sony spun off most of its financial services arm: Sony Financial Group listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 29 September 2025, and Sony kept slightly less than 20% of it.