Sony-Ericsson nets 9% share, profit tumbles

Sony-Ericsson has sold more than 100 million phones in one year for the first time in the company's history to make a dramatic stride in marketshare, the handset maker announced today as part of its latest quarterly financial results. The partnership between Japanese and Swedish firms managed to sell 103.4 handsets over the course of 2007, amounting to slightly more than 9 percent of the market and fourth place overall. The gain is a full 2 percent over what the company claimed in 2006 and is credited by Sony-Ericsson to triumphs with several of its Walkman-themed music phones, including the W580i (pictured).

However, the company also noted that its sales in the holiday period dropped sharply from $661 million in 2006 to $555 million in 2007 -- about a 19 percent drop in one year. Sony-Ericsson has not discussed the reasons for the drop but notes that the average selling price of one of its phones has dropped from $216 to $182 as the company shifts away from smartphones to lower-cost devices such as the W300 or its J-series. The company has not said whether it intends to push these prices upwards or if it is consciously sacrificing profits for marketshare.

The news puts into context announcements by newcomers such as Apple, which sold 4 million iPhones in roughly the same period or less than 4 percent of Sony-Ericsson's sales alone. Nokia is currently the dominant player in world phone sales and held as much as 37 percent of the entire market in mid-2007. Samsung and Motorola currently occupy second and third place in the industry, which will have topped about one billion total phones sold last year.

Filed under: iPhone, industry
Other story tags: Nokia, Motorola, Sony-Ericsson