Sony managed to gain entrance into the burgeoning mobile phone market industry at the beginning of the new century by performing an otherwise deft business maneuver – partnering with Ericsson, a popular mobile phone brand at the time. The new Sony-Ericsson partnership was successful in developing a lot of new mobile phones that captured the attention of fickle mobile phone user crowd. Some of these models are even considered classics now.
But the benefits of that partnership has dwindled significantly as other manufacturers tightened their hold on the market or increased their market share. Sony Ericsson’s market share, on the other hand, has declined. At one point, it held a nine percent market share but right now, it is said to be just holding a three percent share of the mobile phone market.
Now the rumors are flying that Sony wants to end its partnership with Ericsson by buying the latter’s 50 percent share in the joint venture. Buying out Ericsson is seen as Sony’s way of finally leveraging full control of development and also shake off the “Ericsson†brand that is not helping the presence in the market anymore. Sony can now develop its phones in-house and allow it to more freely integrate its other technologies and brands on to its mobile phones. For example, Sony Ericsson released the Xperia Play, an Android smartphone that has an integrated gamepad. But it failed to really make an impact in the market, especially in the US. Now imagine that phone getting the Sony Playstation brand, and you’ll see why Sony needs to go it alone from this point on.
Originally posted on October 7, 2011 @ 8:32 am