Sony Ericsson Aspires To Be Aspirational Choice

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 14 February 2007

PRESS RELEASE From 3GSM World Congress: Barcelona, Spain – 11th February 2007 – Sony Ericsson arrives at this year’s 3GSM Congress closely following a series of announcements that enforce the company’s clear ambition to make it the aspirational and accessible choice for millions more mobile phone users worldwide. Sony Ericsson president Miles Flint comments: “In our first five years we have successfully established ourselves as an aspirational brand in the mobile phone market. We continue to build on this with products such as the W880, a super-slim, high performance 3G Walkman®, that will begin to ship this month. We know what consumers want. With recent announcements of more mid- and low-end handsets such as the K550 Cyber-shot™ and the W200 Walkman® phone, we are now making the Sony Ericsson brand accessible to a wider range of consumers. We aim to make the Sony Ericsson experience aspirational at all price points in the portfolio, from high-end phones to our new talk and text phones, the J110, J120, K200 and K220 models.” PRESS RELEASE From 3GSM World Congress: 2006 was a record year for sales, net income and profit for Sony Ericsson. The company sold 60 million music enabled phones, 17 million of which were Walkman® handsets. In the same period, 4.5 million Cyber-shot™ phones were sold. Since the beginning of the year Sony Ericsson has made a series of announcements that build on the momentum of 2006, with nine new handsets for the GSM market, and in Japan NTT DoCoMo, Inc. announced two new phones by Sony Ericsson, including the first BRAVIA brand handset which delivers mobile TV functionality. Sony Ericsson has also announced its first HSDPA product, the Tri-Band HSDPA/UMTS and Quad-Band EDGE/GPRS PC300 Mobile Broadband PC Card for laptops, and a host of new accessories that enable consumers to enhance their experience of entertainment and communications on the move. Making phones available at lower price points requires improvements in cost efficiencies at high production volumes while protecting quality. To this end, at the end of January Sony Ericsson announced it plans to manufacture mobile phones in Chennai, India in partnership with Flextronics and Foxconn, its global outsourcing manufacturing partners. This will enable Sony Ericsson to offer appealing products at even more competitive price points, especially at the lowest end of the portfolio. Shortly before 3GSM World Congress Sony Ericsson completed its acquisition of the Swedish software company UIQ Technology AB from Symbian Ltd following full regulatory ratification. The company plans to give more details on its strategy for the development of UIQ Technology during 3GSM. Miles Flint concludes: “We have started 2007 in a very strong position, announcing more new products at a wider range of price points than ever before this early in the year. Looking ahead, we fully expect millions more people to enjoy the benefits of the Sony Ericsson brand, making us well placed to gain further market share this year.” Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications serves the global communications market with innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories and PC-cards. Established as a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson in 2001, with global corporate functions located in London, the company employs over 7,500 people worldwide, including R&D sites in Europe, Japan, China and America. Sony Ericsson celebrated the 5th anniversary of the start of the joint venture on 1st October, 2006. Sony Ericsson is the global title sponsor of the Women's Tennis Association, and works with the Association to promote the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in over 80 cities during the year. The tour culminates at the Sony Ericsson Championships in Madrid, Spain, in November. For more information on Sony Ericsson, please visit www.sonyericsson.com WALKMAN®, Cyber-shot™ and BRAVIA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sony Corporation. Related news items Tiny Rugged UMPC WIth Vista -10/10/2007 Hybrid Drive Boosts Laptop's Skillset -10/10/2007 Consumers Want FMC: Companies Don't See The Benefit -02/10/2007 Nokia Buys Map Company For US$8 Billion -02/10/2007 Seven In Unwired Takeover Bid -26/09/2007 Newer news items AMD to License Graphics Technology Optimized for Handheld Devices -13/02/2007 Vodafone to offer new eBay mobile service -13/02/2007 Vodafone Live! to offer Google? 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