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Sony Q4 results surge up

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CIOL Bureau
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STOCKHOLM: Japanese-Swedish mobile phone venture Sony Ericsson beat expectations with record fourth-quarter earnings and said it was optimistic about raising its world market share to third largest from fourth.

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Owned by Sweden's Ericsson and Japan's Sony Corp., the handset maker said on Wednesday it had been buoyed by further success in its music and camera phones and raised its forecast for 2006 total industry handset sales.

"The fourth quarter saw Sony Ericsson finish a strong year with record volumes, sales and net income due to the soaring popularity of our imaging and music phones," company President Miles Flint said in a statement.

Pretax profit rose to 502 million euros ($648.9 million), exceeding the average forecast of 428 million in a Reuters poll and its 206 million in the same period of 2005.

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The figure was a record high, as were net earnings of 447 million euros, up from 144 million in the same period of 2005.

Ericsson shares were up 1.7 per cent to 29.85 euros at 0817 GMT, while Sony shares had closed down 0.53 per cent in Tokyo.

"Sony Ericsson increased market share during the quarter due to the continued success of products such as the K800/K790 Cyber-shot phone and Walkman phone line-up," it added.

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It raised its 2006 estimate for industry handset sales to 980 million units from a previous forecast of 950 million.

"Our target is to become one of the top three players in the industry, and the momentum we established in 2006 makes this an achievable ambition," Flint added.

The company said it believed it had outperformed the market in the fourth quarter, gaining around 1 per cent of market share sequentially for a global position of about 9 per cent.

"In Q4 2006 Sony Ericsson grew market share slightly over 2 per cent against the same period for the previous year," it said.

(Additional reporting by Tarmo Virki in Helsinki)

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