Sony Ericsson
warned the world just over a fortnight ago that things wouldn't be too rosy when it came time to announce Q2 results, and rosy things are not. Even though the handset maker was hoping and praying to break even at the end of the quarter, net profits ended up falling through the floor to the tune of 97%. As predicted, weak sales of mid-to-high-end mobiles were blamed for the bulk of the bad news, and it did affirm that conditions would remain rough for the rest of the year. Granted, the looming launch of the
Xperia X1 should help matters a bit, but without a new stable of low-end cellies to send to emerging markets, it'll be a long road back to the top. Unfortunately, SE's sagging position in the market has left it slashing 2,000 jobs across the globe, though it didn't say exactly where the cuts would be made. It's okay SE, there's only one place to go when you're laying on the bottom... or something like that.
[Image courtesy of
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Read - Sony Ericsson's Q2 earnings
Read - Sony Ericsson plans job cuts
posted Jul 18th 2008 1:32PM
They should tank for not actually releasing anything. They talk a lot, but don't seem to want to deliver what they're talking about lately.
Not only that, they made the same looking phones with "TINY" screens for all their models when everyone wants big screens phones nowadays.
Sony is notorious for crappy handsets anyway, so its not a surprise they have lost 97% of Net Profit.
The phones they DO have are nothing spectacular, and CLEARLY these Scandinavian companies (Im talking to you Sony Ericsson and Nokia) are in ca-hoots with each other, designing phones that go up a model number but look and do the same as the one before, and try to market 5 year old handsets as being NEW for double the cost.
Sony Ericsson is also the one who put out the ever faulty SE T610, the LAST phone T-Mobile carried. Hell, even T-Mobile told me the phone had problems and asked me if I wanted something different to start with. I refused, had it replaced 3x before I finally got to keep it, and upgraded to the V600.
Emerging markets? Like what? Namibia? Not that people dont need some form of telephony but lets be honest here... its 2008 - if you dont have it already, lets look to building something else other then GPRS/GSM phones.
FAIL SONY ERICSSON - oh, might I also mention that the upcoming phones all look mediocre and have less features then any other phones on the market.
er... sony's japanese just for the record...
If "Sony" had crappy handsets, then why was Sony Ericsson the most profitable cell phone manufacturer a quarter or two ago?
That said, they have to push out phones faster. These Swedish and Japanese people must learn from the Koreans. The delay on the Z750 was inexcusable. Here's hoping phones like the Z780 and C905 and X1 are released a lot faster.
T-Mobile version of Z780 will be out in several weeks
but I agree that X1 is way too slow to get released
They better pick up the pace and actually RELEASE something decent instead of yammer about it. This is how Palm started to slip.
the past strategy leaded to failure
same hardware on several models (W580/S500, W710/Z710, K550/W610)
not aggressive on US market (several flagship models don't have 850 and EDGE)
product is not thoroughly tested (K850 failure, cracked keys on W580/S500)
to make a turnaround, SE must
1. avoid to release several models with same hardware
2. ALL $200+ models must have quad-EDGE, and US 3G models will have 2 different variations (one for att/rogers, another is for T-Mobile)
3. supply CDMA models again to Sprint/VZW/Bell
4. adopt 3.5mm and microUSB jacks instead of FastPort
SE phones have their advantage
the best battery
guaranteed reception
easiest to use menus
leaded?... lead
More like "led"
I was waiting for someone to catch that.
I don't see Sony Ericsson making phones for Verizon/Sprint/Bell/Telus/Alltel/Sasktel/MTS until they adopt LTE. SE better hurry up and buy HTC to buy some of its success.
oh you can bet that sony is pissed! Ericsson talked them into leaving the CDMA market a few years ago when before the merger sony was the number 1 seller of CDMA phones in the world!!!. Recently sony announced they will focus more in cdma in Japan.
More like Sony Ericsson better hurry up before Nokia buys *them* out. SE already lost UIQ to the Fins.
More like Sony Ericsson better hurry up before it gets bought out by Nokia. SE already lost UIQ to the Fins.
Maybe they should stop releasing their phones at such a high price with much less features than other phones of the same price range. C902 and G900 is still too expensive for what you get in it.
@Tom - Dude you are way way wrong with your comments!! I am a former SE employee from the CDMA division that was all laid off in 2002 and what you describe is not the way the deal went down.
Ericsson was committed to CDMA for the long haul but the guys from Tokyo did not see profits coming fast enough and they fought to cut the whole division. Sony did the same thing in 1999 when they killed off the JV with Qualcomm and what was Sony PMCA.
Sony was NEVER the number seller of CDMA phones at any point in time. If you don't have your facts straight you should not be posting comments.
I don't believe verizon would want their phones any way.
Not surprising considering the quality of SE's flagship model - the K850i. Upgrading to it from the K750i has turned out to be the worst nightmare I ever had!