Do you know about history of SONY MOBILE?

Sony Mobile Communications AB (formerly Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB) is a multinational mobile phonemanufacturing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It was founded on October 1, 2001 as a joint venture between Sony and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson. Sony acquired Ericsson's share in the venture on February 16, 2012.

Sony Mobile Communications has research and development facilities in Lund, Sweden; Tokyo, Japan; Beijing, China; and Silicon Valley, United States. In 2009, it was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world (after Nokia, Samsung and LG). By 2010, its market share had fallen to sixth place.

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 obtain 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 (their other major customer) that production would be delayed for no more 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 production of current models and the launch of new ones was held up.

Ericsson, which had been in the mobile phone market for decades, and was the world's third largest cellular telephone handset maker, was struggling with huge losses. This was mainly due to this fire and its inability to produce cheaper phones like Nokia. To curtail the losses, it considered outsourcing production to Asian companies that could produce the handsets for lower costs.
Speculation began about a possible sale by Ericsson of its mobile phone division, but the company's president said it had no plans to do so. "Mobile phones are really a core business for Ericsson. We wouldn't be as successful (in networks) if we didn't have phones", he said.

Sony was a marginal player in the worldwide mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent in 2000. By August 2001, the two companies had finalised the terms of the merger announced in April. The company was to have an initial workforce of 3,500 employees.


2001 to 2010

Annual net income or loss 2003 to 2009
Following the creation of the joint venture, Ericsson's market share actually fell, and in August 2002, Ericsson announced that it would cease making mobile phones and end its partnership with Sony if the business continued to disappoint.[citation needed] However, in January 2003, both companies said they would inject more money into the joint venture in a bid to stem the losses.

Sony Ericsson's strategy was to release new models capable of digital photography as well as other multimedia capabilities such as downloading and viewing video clips and personal information management capabilities. To this end, it released several new models which had built-in digital camera and colour screen which were novelties at that time. The joint venture, however, continued to make bigger losses in spite of booming sales. The target date for making a profit from its first year to 2002 was postponed to 2003 to second half of 2003. It failed in its mission of becoming the top seller of multimedia handsets and was in fifth-place and struggling in 2005.

On March 1, 2005, Sony Ericsson introduced the K750i with a 2 megapixel camera, as well as its platform mate, the W800i, the first of the Walkman phones capable of 30 hours of music playback, and two low-end phones.

An example of a Sony Ericsson mobile phone.

In 2007 the company's first 5-Megapixel camera phone, the Sony Ericsson K850i, was announced followed in 2008 by the Sony Ericsson C905, the world's first 8-Megapixel phone.[citation needed] At Mobile World Congress 2009, Sony Ericsson unveiled the first 12-Megapixel phone, named Satio, on May 28, 2009.
On May 1, 2005, Sony Ericsson agreed to become the global title sponsor for the WTA Tour in a deal worth $88 million US dollars over 6 years. The women's pro tennis circuit was renamed the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Just over a month later on June 7, it announced sponsorship of West Indian batsmen Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan. In October 2005, Sony Ericsson presented the first mobile phone based on UIQ 3, the P990.

On January 2, 2007, Sony Ericsson announced in Stockholm that it would have some of its mobile phones made in India, and that its two outsourcing partners, Flextronics and Foxconn would manufacture ten million mobile phones per year by 2009. CEO Miles Flint announced at a press conference held with India's communications minister Dayanidhi Maran in Chennai that India was one of the fastest growing markets in the world and a priority market for Sony Ericsson with 105 million users of GSM mobile telephones.
Sony Ericsson struggled following the launch of Apple's iPhone in the third quarter of 2007. Its handset shipments fell from a high of 30.8m in Q4 2007 to only 8.1m in Q1 2011.

 The company had made net losses in six of the 15 quarters and seen its cash reserves shrink from €2.2bn to €599m, after taking a €375m cash injection from its joint owners. The eclipse of the Symbian operating system, initially by Apple's iPhone, and then by Google's Android, has affected Sony Ericsson's position in the market.

Sony Ericsson was overtaken by its South Korean rival LG Electronics in Q1 2008. Sony Ericsson's company's profits fell significantly by 43% to €133 million (approx. US$180 million), sales falling by 8% and market share falling from 9.4% to 7.9%, despite favourable conditions that the handset market was expected to grow by 10% in 2008. Sony Ericsson announced another profit warning in June 2008 and saw net profit crash by 97% in Q2 2008, announcing that it would cut 2,000 jobs, leading to wide fear that Sony Ericsson is on the verge of decline along with its struggling rival, Motorola.  In Q3 the profits were much on the same level, however November and December saw increased profits along with new models being released such as the C905 being one of the top sellers across the United Kingdom.

In June 2008, Sony Ericsson had about 8,200 employees, it then launched a cost-cutting program and by the end of 2009 it had slashed its global workforce by around 5,000 people. It planned to cut another 1,500 jobs in 2010. It has also closed R&D centres in Chadwick House, Birchwood (Warrington) in the UK; Miami, Seattle, San Diego and RTP (Raleigh, NC) in the USA; The Chennai Unit (Tamil Nadu) in India; Hässleholm and Kista in Sweden and operations in the Netherlands. The UIQ centres in London and Budapest were also closed, UIQ was a joint venture with Motorola which began life in the 1990s.

2010 to present

On October 27, 2011, Sony announced that it would acquire Ericsson's stake in Sony Ericsson for €1.05 billion ($1.47 billion), making the mobile handset business a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony. The transaction's completion was expected to occur in January 2012. At their keynote at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Sony's Kaz Hirai announced that Sony Ericsson would be known simply as Sony Mobile Communications pending completion of the transaction. On January 26, 2012, The European Union approved the buyout.

On February 16, 2012, Sony announced it had completed the full acquisition of Sony Ericsson. The first Sony only mobile is the Sony Xperia S launched at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. Sony Mobile Communications has decided to phase out all the feature (non-smart) phones by September 2012 and focus on smartphones segment.

Current

Sony currently concentrates on the categories of: business (web and email), design and all-rounder phones. Its two current categories are:

The BRAVIA-branded line of phones, launched 2007 in the Japanese market only.
Until now, five BRAVIA branded phones have been produced. Sony Ericsson (FOMA SO903iTV, FOMA SO906i, U1, S004, and S005) uses the BRAVIA brand. BRAVIA branded phone are able to show 1seg terrestrial television.

The XPERIA range of mobile phones, heralded by the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 in February 2008 at the Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM) held in Barcelona Spain, was the first trademark promoted by Sony Ericsson as its own and is designated to provide technological convergence among its target user base. The first model, X1, carried the Windows Mobile operating system with a Sony Ericsson's panel interface. The Xperia X10 model features the Android operating system. Additionally, Yahoo! News reported that Sony would align with Google to run Android on its upcoming smartphone.



More Detail :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mobile_Communications

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