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Ouch. Sony Ericsson’s first quarter of 2009 is looking like a rough one, predicting 14 million units sold. That sounds like a lot on its own, but considering they were up around 24.2 million in Q4 ’08, that’s quite the drop. The whole thing translates to $459 million-$526 million in losses, and analysts have had some spectacularly dismal reactions.
“Investors are questioning the whole market now, even though I think the issue for Sony Ericsson is more company specific,” said Jari Honko, analyst with eQ Bank.
“It’s a real catastrophe. Those are very big losses and they are probably losing a lot of market share,” said Greger Johansson, from analyst firm Redeye.
“With competition intensifying it is going to be a tough task to regain momentum until new products appear and economic conditions improve,” [Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight,] said.
All this hurting from Sony Ericsson has led them to consider a buy-out from Sony, which seems to be the way of surviving in a rough economy. The last thing we saw from Sony Ericsson was the Twiggy, which promises to be a slim evolution of the W350, and could grab a respectable bite of the mid-range market. For Sony Ericsson’s sake, I hope the C905 does well once it hits American shores, but it seems like the Xperia and upcoming Idou will be a little too rich for most people’s blood these days.
[via Reuters]
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
