STOCKHOLM: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd, the No 5 mobile phone maker in the world, announced that its net profit has gone up 16 per cent in the third quarter to 104 million euros compared with 90 million euros a year earlier. Sales recorded a 22 per cent increase to 2.06 billion euros.
The company, a joint venture between Swedish Telefone AB LM Ericsson and Japanese Sony Corporation, said new product launches helped it to gain market share and profit. It sold 13.8 million mobile phones in the quarter, up 29 per cent from a year earlier, its new K750 camera phone and the high-end W800 Walkman handset contributing handsomely. In earlier quarters, the company had seen lackluster performance because of unpopular products and its spending on developing newer models.
The third quarter witnessed the company's average selling price (a benchmark for financial analysts) gaining ground and reaching 149 euros from 137 euros in the first and second quarters. The ASP was 157 euros a year earlier. The recovery has been mainly on account of sales of K750 and W800.
Pretax profit for the quarter was 151 million euros.
The company now intends to take on competitors Nokia and Motorola with music phones using Sony's Walkman brand and selling cheaper handsets in China and India. It introduced another high-end phone, W900, a third- generation handset using the Walkman brand.
The company had for the first time overtaken Germany's phone maker Siemens AG in the second quarter, according to market research firm Gartner.
Sony Ericsson President Miles Flint said the company had no intention to focus more on the lower-end products, which has been the recent strategy of rivals such as Motorola. He said the company's 3G-market share is higher than its overall market share and he expects a real take off in 3G in western Europe now.
The company expected to have sales of 760 million units globally against an earlier forecast of 720 million units.
Posted
on : Tue, 18 Oct 2005 00:35 GMT | General News
By : Chris Rowe
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