06-04-2012, 03:32 PM
Sony Ericsson
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introduction
Sony Ericsson is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to make mobile phones. The stated reason for this venture is to combine Sony's consumer electronics expertise with Ericsson's technological leadership in the communications sector. Both companies have stopped making their own mobile phones.
Troubles in Ericsson's mobile phone business:-
In the United States, Ericsson partnered with General Electric in the early nineties, primarily to establish a US presence and brand recognition.
Ericsson had decided to source on chips for its phones from a single source, a Philips facility in New Mexico. In March 2000, a fire at the Philips factory contaminated the sterile facility. Philips assured Ericsson and Nokia (the other major customer of the facility) that production would be delayed by less than a week. When it became clear that production would actually be compromised for months, Ericsson was faced with a serious shortage. Nokia had already begun to obtain parts from alternative sources, but Ericsson's position was much worse as both production of current models and the launch of new ones was held up.
Background of the joint venture:-
Sony was a marginal player in the worldwide cell phone market with a share of less than 1 percent in 2000. It was also struggling in this area with losses but wanted to focus more in this area. In April 2001, Sony confirmed that it was in talks with Ericsson for a possible collaboration in the handset business. This was soon after Toshiba and Siemens had announced plans in November 2000 to work together on handsets for 3G mobile networks, which was cancelled in 2001.
Previous systems
Sony Ericsson has used three methods in the past of naming their mobile products:
• The most common format uses a total of five (or six) characters, eg. K750i.
This format begins with a capital letter to denote the series of the phone (K750i). This is then followed by three numbers (K750i). The first number indicates the sub-series of the phone, the second indicates the amount of progression from the previous release, i.e. K700i to K750i, and the third number is always either a '0' or '8' and the letter '8' is used either to show a variation of the phone destined for a different market without a feature, eg. the W888 is a W880i without 3G,
financial information
Sony Ericsson posted its first profit in the second half of 2003. Since then, the sales figures from phones have been:
• 2004: 42 million units
• 2005: 50 million units
• 2006: 74.8 million units
• 2007: 103.4 million units
• 2008: 96.6 million units