Smartphone maker Sony Ericsson this morning posted a pre-tax loss of 247 million euros ($318 million) in the fourth quarter of 2011, after reporting a profit of 31 million euros in Q3 2011. The company, a 50:50 joint-venture between Sony and Ericsson, blames “intense competition”, “price erosion” and effects from the flooding in Thailand as some of the main drivers for the drop.
Sales for the quarter were approximately 1.3 billion euros, down 16 percent year-on-year. → Read More
I’ve never been a huge fan of Sony Ericsson. The phones are fine, I guess, and I certainly commend the company’s drive to differentiate. The Xperia Play is a great concept but it failed to really take off.
Today, however, I was very impressed after taking a good hard look at the new Xperia S. It’s not the thinnest phone at .4 inches, nor does it have the biggest screen, but it is something fresh which is more than I can say for most Android Gingerbread phones. → Read More
The era of Ice Cream Sandwich is upon us, and while some of us are waiting diligently for our Galaxy Nexuses to to arrive, others are left pondering a more different question: when will my device get Android 4.0?
Sony Ericsson (soon to be just Sony) and Motorola have heard our pleas, and have both gone into lengthy tirades about how the Ice Cream Sandwich process actually works and how long it takes, albeit without juicy details like dates.
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Sony and Ericsson have made no secret of their impending split-up, but at the time of the announcement, the two didn’t have much to say about when the companies would officially go their separate ways.
That is, of course, until now: a high-level source from within Sony told the Times of India that the mobile phone company will begin to fly solely under Sony’s banner by the middle of 2012. → Read More
Getting content from your Android device onto a bigger screen has never been terribly hard, but Sony Ericsson’s Vscreens service makes it an absolute cakewalk. There’s no fiddling with DLNA settings or fumbling with cables here — just QR codes.
Once you’ve downloaded the Vscreens app from the Android Market (which works on any Android device running 2.1 later, not just SE handsets), point your browser at vscreens.com and scan that QR code. → Read More
In addition to outlining its plans in Dutch on Facebook, Sony Ericsson has clarified its stance on bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to the Xperia-toting masses on its blog today.
As if you haven’t been obsessively reading up on the update already, I’ll go ahead and mention a few new features including flexible widgets, Roboto font, the ability to take screen shots, revamped notifications and facial unlock. Luckily, if your phone came out in 2011 and it has “Xperia” in the name, Ice Cream Sandwich is headed your way.
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Yikes, what a disheartening story.
Proving that they don’t know a damned thing about fan communities, Sony Ericsson has filed a formal complaint against the fan-operated blog/forum Xperiablog.net, claiming that the owners were using it in “bad faith”. Fearing the costs of a legal battle, the site says they will be shutting down operations immediately.
If there were a class on “How not to handle potentially sticky trademark issues”, this would be lesson one. → Read More
Sony Ericsson has joined HTC in offering up a general plan for pushing the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich updates to existing handsets.
In a message on its Dutch Facebook page, the company has said it will roll out Ice Cream Sandwich to all 2011 Xperia handsets. Phones that should receive the update include the Xperia Play, Xperia neo and neo V, Mini Pro, Xperia Ray, and the Xperia arc. → Read More
A day after Google announced that 190 million Android devices have been manufactured to date, Sony Ericsson this morning revealed that 22 million of those that were sold were its Android-powered Xperia smartphones.
In fact, 80 percent of the company’s sales now comes from higher-end mobile devices, which is why Sony Ericsson will be shifting its entire product portfolio to smartphones during 2012, the company said.
Sony Ericsson estimates that its share of the global Android-based smartphone market during Q3 was approximately 12 percent in volume. → Read More
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sony Ericsson President and CEO Bert Nordberg made a number of interesting statements about the iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Motorola.
Defending the decision to pick Android as the choice operating system for its mobile handsets, Nordberg posits that it was ‘the best choice they could have made’ considering its rapid growth, but also acknowledges that the company “should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived in 2007″.
Asked whether he would have liked to buy Motorola Mobility rather than Google, he candidly responds:
“Well sure, but before you go shopping you have to become rich. “
With an October/November launch window more or less confirmed, the next burning question is which devices will get to benefit from the Ice Cream Sandwich treatment first. Motorola’s Sanjay Jha mentioned last month that he’d like his company to be first to market with an ICS device, but now another vendor has thrown their official support behind the latest update.
Today, Sony Ericsson has thrown their weight behind the forthcoming version of Android, with all of their 2011 Xperia smartphones shipping with support for Ice Cream Sandwich. → Read More
Sony Ericsson knows how to do Facebook. A social network can’t be the only selling point of the phone, like on the HTC Status — there has to be something else. For gamers, SE brought Facebook into the mix with the Xperia Play.
Now, music fans are getting the same love. This morning, SE unveiled the Live With Walkman smartphone featuring a button for instant music access and deep Facebook integration. → Read More
Sony Ericsson released its quarterly earnings this morning, reporting a surprise loss for Q2 2011 and declining sales. The earthquake that hit Japan earlier this year has a lot to do with the slump, as it had a major effect on the company’s supply chain.
The quarter ended in a net loss of €50 million (roughly $70.5 million), compared to a net income of €12 million ($17 million) in the same quarter in the previous year, and €11 million ($15.5 million) in the last quarter. → Read More
Looks like two new Xperia smartphones are headed out of Sony Ericsson labs and into the wild, with an expectation to launch in the third quarter.
We still don’t know much about the handsets, called the Xperia Ray and the Xperia Active, although we can confirm that both will be powered by Google’s Android OS. From the ads, we’re thinking that the Ray will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but it’s hard to tell which version of the OS got slapped on to the Active. → Read More
Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Play and Arc smartphones will be getting an update this morning to Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread, but only for our cross-the-pond friends on Vodafone’s network. Sorry Verizonites, but I’m sure your Xperia handsets will get bumped up to 2.3.3 soon. In the mean time, Vodafone Play and Arc owners can look forward to a few bug fixes, and Facebook Inside Xperia, Sony Ericsson’s new Facebook-integrated UI. → Read More
In an industry first, Sony Ericsson strategic business developer Martin Essl just announced that Sony Ericsson will integrate Facebook’s Single Sign On system across all its Android phones in the next couple of months. Launched in December, Single Sign On is like Facebook Connect for mobile apps, removing friction because it allows you to log into all apps that use Facebook Connect just by logging into one.
Essl did not go into the specifics of the integration but revealed that the Facebook app will come preloaded on all phones and there will be an (optional) initial walk through process for Single Sign On as part of the phone setup. Essl also said there would be additional integrations beyond what the Facebook app can already do. → Read More
A report from Digitimes today has stated that Sony Ericsson have Windows Phone 7 devices “in the pipeline.”
Sony Ericsson have previously said that Windows Phone 7 has “remained on their roadmap”, but, to date, we’ve seen nothing of any WinPho devices from ol’ ess eee.
However, with Sony Ericsson’s market share continuing to decrease, it seems that they may now be taking WP7 a little more seriously. → Read More
I’m totally down with Sony Ericsson trying almost anything to stay relevant in non-niche markets, so the Xperia Arc looks actually exciting and/or good. Sadly, as handsome as it is I doubt there are many who who really want to watch an eleven minute video describing every nuance. However, if you’re that kind of guy, here you are. → Read More
Sony Ericsson’s Symbian-powered Vivaz looks to be getting an update, with a leak outlining an Android-powered successor.
Mobile Review have a very detailed overview of the phone — also known as the MT15i or Halon — including more pics than you can shake a megapixel at. The skinny of it all, though, is the juicy, juicy specs, which I’ve compiled for you after the break. → Read More
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