Perhaps It's on sale because it's rubbish. Got mine in Jan this year.....couldn't wait for the pixel 7 to come out so I could replace it. Infact I threw it to the back of the drawer and been using my old pixel 4xl (with a fubar battery) as it's much better. Sony was constantly overheating (when on calls, charging, general use) and as for using Android auto - don't bother! App keeps crashing, phone massively over heats after 10 mins and need to unplug it and turn off to cool down....not really the phone I was expecting...back to pixel for me, thankfully! Don't bother wasting money on one, in the sale or not!
The comparatively compact 6.1-inch Sony Xperia 5 III has now dropped to US$699 at multiple retailers in the US, which is a quite significant 30% discount in relation to the Android smartphone's lofty list price, which is just shy of the US$1,000 mark.