Sony Ericsson will make only smartphones from next year

PHONE MAKER Sony Ericsson has announced that it will make only smartphones next year.

The firm has released its third quarter financial results that show 80 per cent of its sales were smartphones. For this reason it will forget about feature phones and put all of its efforts into smartphones next year.

Bert Nordberg, president and CEO of Sony Ericsson said, "We will continue to invest in the smartphone market, shifting the entire portfolio to smartphones during 2012."

"We delivered a solid 73 million Euro improvement in income before taxes as we rebounded from the previous quarter with a 33 percent increase in sales. Android-based Xperia smartphone sales now account for more than 80 percent of sales and we have shipped 22 million Xperia smartphones to date," he added

A total of 9.5 million units were shipped in the quarter, which was a nine per cent decrease on year-to-year figures due to a drop in shipments of feature phones. However, this was partly offset by an increase in smartphone shipments.

The average selling price for a Sony Ericsson device was €166, an increase of €10 compared to the second quarter of this year.

Sony Ericsson said its share of the Android smartphone market globally during the quarter was approximately 12 per cent in volume and 11 per cent in value. It forecast "modest industry growth in total units in the global handset market for 2011". µ