Sony Ericsson
warned the world just over a fortnight ago that things wouldn't be too rosy when it came time to announce Q2 results, and rosy things are not. Even though the handset maker was hoping and praying to break even at the end of the quarter, net profits ended up falling through the floor to the tune of 97%. As predicted, weak sales of mid-to-high-end mobiles were blamed for the bulk of the bad news, and it did affirm that conditions would remain rough for the rest of the year. Granted, the looming launch of the
Xperia X1 should help matters a bit, but without a new stable of low-end cellies to send to emerging markets, it'll be a long road back to the top. Unfortunately, SE's sagging position in the market has left it slashing 2,000 jobs across the globe, though it didn't say exactly where the cuts would be made. It's okay SE, there's only one place to go when you're laying on the bottom... or something like that.
[Image courtesy of
Flickr]
Read - Sony Ericsson's Q2 earnings
Read - Sony Ericsson plans job cuts
posted July 18th 2008 1:32PM
Weird when phones like the S500i and W580i have keypad flaws in almost 90% of the phones and a recall or fix is never made. Why wouldn't sales soar??? (note the sarcasm)
Ericsson was so much better when it was just Ericsson. Used to make awesome phones like the t28 or the R380, innovative phones for its time. Sony ericsson has come up with nothing great apart from the Xperia, but that's taking frign ages to come out anyway so...
I'd love to buy a cybershot phone but I can't because of limited carriers. If you could buy a phone and use it for any carrier the phone market would be a lot better for SE.
Problem is that right now you only get to pick from garbage phones or pay through the nose for a decent phone. Even with that you get locked into a two year contract with whatever ass raper you decide to go with.
Considering that SE dropped 5th while LG did take it's place as 4th biggest mobile phone manucaturer can't just be about "style over substance".
SE has real problems with it's Walkman series by not giving 3.5 jack, build quality is crappy and not keeping up with the competition and just thinking that the killer devices that did make Nokia cry back at the time would be enough today. They are just packing old devices to new shells.
You should read some articles from Eldar Murtazin (owner of Mobile-Review who has every Nokia, SE and Samsung device year before anybody else) ) who was real SE lover thinks they are doomed.
http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2008/birulki-6-en.shtml
Example c905 will be destroyed by Nokia's device that will be announced by September and released at the same time as c905. Not to even talk about Samsungs i8510 that have already done it.
Of course if you like uiq so much then there isn't much i can say.
Aww man. I always liked the idea they had where some Fossil watches could sync with the SE handsets via bluetooth, and when a call would come in the caller ID info would appear on your watch. I'm sure I'm like, one of the ten people that feature appealed to, but I thought it would be a neat way to check your phone during a meeting without looking like a jerk.
Not a surprise. I would have already purchased a few of their higher end phones if they had the following:
-Standard mini-USB for data xfer and charging
-2.5/3.5mm headset jack for those who choose not to use bluetooth
I don't enjoy being nickel and dimed for accessories like a proprietary USB cable that will only ever work on my Sony phone. The lack of those two things, and the mindset of the company is enough to convince me to buy other phones which have those.
I second that.....
Thing is, Sony Ericsson make the best phones for normal consumers. Fantastic UI (compared to Nokias shitty, sluggish, buggy, clunky bollocks), easy to use, fantastic features. and lots of neat touches and attention to detail.
people just wouldnt know a good phone if it hit them in the face. People buy the crappy pink ones or ones that slide, whoopee. Style over substance..
well, SE has virtually no current smartphones (p1i). This compares very unfavourably to nokia's (extensive) business and multimedia smartphone range (E series, N series), not to mention other brands.
SE had a bigggg joystick reliability problem; now they have stopped with the joysticks.
Their low-end and mid-range models have suffered from lack of new models until their very recent announcements of the S302, K330, J132 and F305.
All this adds up. I like their GUIs and generally they make good phones, but lately their new-release performance has been pretty bad.
i'll just add:
that said, their new G502, G900, G700 models are probably a good example of doing things right. It took them a while though.
Spot on man...i loved my sony erricson and i went to a nokia and the UI is shocking, things just dont make sense.
i cannot wait to go back to a SE next year.
My family has five SE phones and enjoy them all...hope they are around at upgrade time.
Unbelieve. No really, I can't believe it. I love SE phones. My friends love SE phones.
I see that the article says SALES only fell just-a-tad under 10%. But net profit just plummeted? What the hell is going on inside SE to lose all that money?
If anyone wants to see the original flickr photo page for the photo used in this article :
http://flickr.com/photos/mroach/529845670/
I'm not surprised that SE profits 97 percent. They only sell phones that support GSM. In the US, majority of phone users are CDMA (Verizon and Sprint). Verizon and Sprint users tend to use mid-range phones. Most T-Mobile and ATT users are iPhones, Blackberry, and Razr users. SE markets they devices in flooded competited markets with a high price tag aiming towards a music oriented consumer (which will probably pick up an iPhone). SE also fails to incorporate the Sony brand, they don't market it with any of the Playstation or Bravia or Vaio products.
Sony Ericsson should just split, You go your way, ill go mine.
SE makes great phones. Even the A200 platform phones like the Z750. SE was screwed by someone at ATT or ATT's commitment to Apple's phone and the money it would generate. IMHO. SE's worse technical policy was the slow move to cover UMTS/HSDA bands, and the worse business policy by their sales department who negotiated the contracts with ATT for which phones they would sell.
Why do I say this? The Z750 (and probably other SE phones) has had so many of it's features crippled by ATT's requested firmware changes; here, let me count the ways for you:
1. Video phone calling - crippled (yes, it has 2 cameras in it)
2. GPS - crippled - it's A-GPS
3. Blogging from camera as a 'send to blog' - crippled
4. RSS Desktop - crippled (has as many features as an iPhone's)
5. Podcasts (video and audio) - crippled can only be uploaded from desktop app when phone is connected
6. Exchange ActiveSync - crippled
7. iSync - crippled (YES, debranded it does, and it has SyncML, too)
8. Email push client - crippled (unranded works with ANY pop or imap server, and can filter out unwanted domains, etc from the 'push')
9. Network Sharing function obsured, phone can be part of office network via USB or Bluetooth
10. Choice between GSM & 3G vs GSM only; blocked, resulting in terrible battery life as the phone tries to be 3G all the time.
11. ATT has also blocks 3G tethering for the phone at the network, but allows EDGE tethering.
12. FOTA (Firmeware Over The Air) updates crippled.
13. Confusion on the size of the M2 Micro that the phone supports; but it's 8G, but some apps misread the file/space sizes
It makes you wonder, the SE people who designed it had the right idea, that a small compact phone with these features would be killer, then the sales department comes back from the client, and says, they like the case, everything else is to be disabled.....and design me another phone with a fancy case....
I have been a fan of walkman phones since i bought the w800i, then w810i, and now w610i. I think SE needs to concentrate on fewer phones with more features. 320x240 screen, at least 3mp cam with a/f and qvga video recording@30 fps, bluetooth, a2dp, quadband 3G, wifi, slim like my w610 with w810 keypad and a regular ms duo slot not stupid m2. All of this would make for a great mid level phone. At least my little w610 has copy&paste you iphonies!
Spot on man...i loved my sony erricson and i went to a nokia and the UI is shocking, things just dont make sense.
i cannot wait to go back to a SE next year.
Oh and they need to leave in edge support. Most of the time SE phones don't have edge and 3G. And the 3G isn't usa 3G so your stuck on gprs O_o
I always buy my phones unlocked to begin with and I love SE phones but living in the us its hard to decide witch model to get. so to sum it up,
SE please make a phone with these specifications and I will buy it:
gprs
edge
US 3g
wifi
at least 320x240 resolution screen
at least 320x240@30fps video
at least 3MP cam
with a/f
candy bar form factor
as slim as w610
keypad like the one on w810
customizable soft keys!
walkman 3.0
regular MS duo slot
bluetooth a2dp
and last but not least..... a friggin 3.5mm headphone jack!!!
make it and people will buy it!
http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_j132-pictures-2430.php
You want 3.5mm headphone jack, u say?
Only problem is you have 4MB onboard memory :p
However, this might be a sign of (some?) new models switching to 3.5mm. The only problem I see with this is 3.5mm jacks go bad without adequate dust and dirt protection. Perhaps they didn't want this affecting them with unnecessary returns (lots of lint and so forth in a pocket without the 3.5mm audio plug being used), and it's fair to say phones are probably more used than traditional audio Walkmans.
Way to attribute this to Flickr and not the actual source of the image: the person who went out and took the photograph. Yet another abuse of Creative Commons licensing.
Having used SE and Nokia (cheap models), I am MUCH happier with the SE. I have a w810i and it works very well.
Pros:
Candybar (small compact, no flipping, etc) Iphone is too big to fit in my pocket.
Excellent software (much better than nokia!)
Shows up on my computer as a drive, so I can load music and podcasts easily
FM radio (why won't apple install this on ANY of their gizmos?)
Cons:
The propriatory connector sucks. Mine earphones regularly wear out and don't connect well.
For my purposes, the w810i is perfect.
Atomic