Sony Ericsson profit triples

Handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson today reported net income for the first quarter of 2006 more than tripled to Eur109m (GBP75m), compared to Eur32m in the same period last year.

Sony Ericsson said the strong performance was attributable to growth in the global handset market continuing to outpace earlier expectations. The company shipped 13.3 million handsets during the quarter, an increase of 41 per cent compared to the 9.4 million units shipped in the same period last year.

Sales for the quarter increased 55 per cent year on year from Eur1.28bn a year ago to Eur1.99bn in the first quarter of this year.

As a result of continued growth, Sony Ericsson now forecasts the global market outlook for 2006 to be over 900 million units, up from previous estimations of 10 per cent market growth on 2005 market volumes of about 780 million units.

During the quarter, the company ramped up its introduction of new products, which included a further three Walkman phones, two flagship 3.2 megapixel camera phones and Sony Ericsson' first FOMA phone for NTT DoCoMo as well as an EV-DO handset with Sony's FeliCa multi-purpose IC card technology for KDDI.

Highlighting the success of the Walkman brand in the mobile space, Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson said the company has sold 5.5 million Walkman branded phones since mid-August.

The Average Selling Price (ASP) of handsets also rose 4 per cent year on year to Eur149, reflecting the greater proportion of higher end products entering the product mix.

Earlier this week, leading handset vendor Nokia also said that it anticipated its ASP for handsets to increase to around Eur103 in the first quarter. Thos compares to previous guidance, which suggested that the ASP of handsets would be flat to slightly down sequentially from the Eur99 in the last quarter of 2005.

13.04.06
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