Sony Xperia 1 IX appears in IMEI Database

9 August 2026 TheWalkmanBlog 1 Comment

Japanese Tech Blog S-Max.jp has posted new details on a possible Xperia 1 successor.

Their information come from the GSMA IMEI Database, which has 3 new Sony model codes. The pattern does follow the past models.

XQ-HH44 – PM-1545-BV
XQ-HH54 – PM-1540-BV
XQ-HH74 – PM-1541-BV

For comparison, the Xperia 1 VIII (XQ-GExx) appeared in the GSMA IMEI database in November 2025, and the Xperia 1 VII (XQ-FSxx) in October 2024.

An August 2026 certification for what should be the Xperia 1 IX, is earlier than in previous models, but whether this means we will see an earlier announcement next year (before May 2027) is unknown.

While not confirmed, next year’s Xperia 1 IX should feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 SoC. Qualcomm has already told its customers they plan to raise the pricing of their chips by a percentage in the double digits. No figures were released by Qualcomm, so difficult to speculate what kind of increase we could expect. The bigger impact will be memory pricing, as that has jumped significantly, and the increased costs would affect the price of a smartphone much more than the SoC price increase.

Sony has stated they have secured “enough memory chip supply for the current financial year”, FY26. which ends in March 2027. Much of the supply will undoubtedly be used in PlayStation devices, but some will go towards any current and new Xperia models, and upcoming Walkman models. I would hope this memory supply also includes the new Xperia 1. I do believe the new model will receive a price increase once it is announced.

With this confirmation of a new model, it shows that Sony will keep the Xperia line for 2027, and will not pull out of the market just yet. The internal code should be PDX-278.

I have checked a few sim databases, but no new models have been added yet.

I am looking forward to the new model. I am curious what Sony will actually update to set it apart from this year’s model. I am hoping we will finally see a spec bump on the screen up to 1440p, from the current 1080p. While some users may not want a pinhole or teardrop camera island, for me, it would not matter. If the front camera specs improve, then the design of the front camera is secondary. But I suspect Sony will keep a similar design to the Xperia 1 VIII, with some minor changes.

Considering the zoom lens received an upgrade this year, perhaps will we see an upgrade to the main camera in 2027? Sony’s mobile sensor list is here. There is a chance Sony has their own custom variant sensor from the lineup for the new model. I doubt we will get any definite leaks of the specs anytime soon.

What kind of improvements and changes would you like to see in the new Xperia 1? Drop your thoughts below.

Source: S-Max.jp

Update 1 – August 18

The upcoming Xperia 1 IX (PM-154x-BV) has shown up in the same SIM database that the Xperia 1 VIII showed up in. All 6 variants are in the database. corresponding to different versions of the model.