Divorce and maiden name Sony splits with Ericsson

Sony Ericsson has broken up - one of the strongest alliances in the mobile industry, which gave birth to several truly iconic phones of the “zero”. The joint boat between Sony and Ericsson stayed afloat for exactly ten years. For Ericsson, the break means a final exit from the cell phone market, while Sony will try to win the sympathy of users alone.

How it all began

Japanese Sony and Swedish Ericsson entered into an alliance in 2001. In terms of scale, the "marriage" was unequal - at the turn of the century, Ericsson was the third largest manufacturer of mobile phones, and Sony trailed somewhere far behind.

The marriage was preceded by one circumstance of a very romantic nature - namely, lightning that struck the Philips plant building in the American city of Albuquerque on March 17, 2000. The fire damaged two of the four "clean rooms" - sterile areas where microprocessors are manufactured. This led to delays in chip deliveries to Philips customers, which included Ericsson.

Ericsson suffered large losses and for some time was even forced to withdraw from the cell phone market, while simultaneously looking for less unlucky partners. Preference in the search was given to Asian companies. Those who seek will always find, and in the spring of 2001 Ericsson announced that it was entering into an alliance with Sony. On September 11, as planes rammed New York skyscrapers, members of the boards of directors of both companies approved the creation of a joint venture Sony Ericsson with a staff of 3,500 employees. Sony and Ericsson divided the project fraternally - each company got half of the enterprise.

During the first years of their life together, the companies were getting used to each other and the market. There were also quarrels - in 2002, noting that cooperation was not producing successful results, Ericsson threatened to part with Sony, but the partners managed to find a compromise, agreeing to invest more money in the project.

Golden mean

Sony Ericsson managed to find itself by recognizing two main fashion trends of the early 2000s - color screens and mobile photography. In 2003, the T610 was released - one of the company’s first phones, which received “cult” status. The success of the device was largely due to the stylish, half-metal body, a very high-quality screen by 2003 standards, a built-in camera with decent color rendition and convenient control via a joystick.

The next successful decision of Sony Ericsson was the application of popular brands owned by Sony to phones - Walkman (players) and Cyber-shot (cameras). The result was devices that made it possible not to have to worry about choosing “phone or player” or “phone or camera.” The fame of “phones with a good camera” has been assigned to Sony Ericsson products since the time of the T610.

At the same time, Sony and Ericsson were beginning to explore the nascent smartphone market. They chose UIQ, based on the Symbian OS - which was then at the zenith of its glory - as the base platform for their devices. The first test was the P800, released in 2002. In addition to Sony Ericsson, UIQ devices were produced by Motorola and BenQ.

Sunset

In 2005-2006, Sony Ericsson was a strong middling player, holding about fifth place in the ranking of major phone manufacturers and having an appreciative audience that was eagerly awaiting the release of new products. The first serious blow to the company's position was dealt by the iPhone released in 2007 (there is no need to explain for a long time why). Sony Ericsson's market share began to gradually decline, and already in 2008 the manufacturer let South Korean LG get ahead of itself.

The next shock for Sony Ericsson was Android. About two years before the system's release, the manufacturer considered UIQ unpromising and began to look for another OS, eventually settling on Windows Mobile - which was soon destined to die out. In 2008, at the Mobile World Congress exhibition, the company proudly announced the first smartphone in the new Xperia line - X1 running Microsoft's mobile OS.

If Sony Ericsson had waited a year and become one of the first adopters of Android, the fate of the enterprise might have turned out differently. The company introduced the first smartphones on this OS hopelessly late - in 2010, thus becoming only one of dozens of manufacturers producing devices on Google's operating system.

Sony Ericsson tried to correct the situation in a proven way - by choosing fashion trends and introducing them into its devices. It was decided to focus on mobile games and ecology. The first trend is embodied in the Xperia Play “game phone”, on which you can run PlayStation toys, and the second in the GreenHeart line of “green” phones (their production, Sony Ericsson assures, causes minimal damage to the environment).

If the trick with “trends” worked at the beginning of the 2000s, then a decade later it was no longer possible to swim at its expense. The Xperia Play did not “play”, arousing only muted interest among gamers, and Sony Ericsson received a standing ovation from Greenpeace for its “green” phones, and that was all.

Another factor that contributed to the demise of Sony Ericsson was the changing preferences of buyers. If previously, devices in the mid-price category enjoyed the greatest success among people - a kind of balance of quality and price that Sony Ericsson has always tried to maintain, now the greatest chance of success is either a “wow device” (with a huge screen, a multi-core processor, or both right away), or, conversely, a very inexpensive phone (“it calls and writes SMS, but I don’t need anything else”).

Gap

their official separation Sony and Ericsson announced in October 2011. It was agreed that Sony would buy out 50 percent of the business from Ericsson for 1.05 billion euros and continue to manage the production of mobile devices alone. At the end of January, the deal between the companies was approved by the EU authorities, and on February 16, the Japanese manufacturer announced that Sony Ericsson had turned into Sony Mobile.

The first “transitional” devices were the devices that Sony showed at CES in early January - Xperia S, Xperia Ion, Xperia acro HD and Xperia NX (only the first will be sold in Russia). All of them retained the green Sony Ericsson logo, but the Xperia S was already offered under two names - Sony Ericsson and simply Sony.

The collapse of the union, first of all, means that Ericsson, one of its pioneers, is leaving the mobile phone market. In the future, the Swedish company will focus on the production of telecommunications equipment. It will be clear later how Sony will dispose of the enterprise it has acquired as full ownership. Judging by the devices shown at CES, it will retain the Xperia line. The company is expected to present new Xperia smartphones at the end of February in Barcelona.

Sony said in a press release that it plans to strengthen the relationship between its various devices - smartphones, tablets, TVs and computers. In this regard, it will follow the path of Microsoft and Apple - they are striving to unite their devices into what is commonly called an “ecosystem”. There is also an opinion that parting with Ericsson will allow Sony to speed up the device development cycle - new devices under the Sony brand will be released more often.

In addition, Sony, under the terms of the agreement, gets the opportunity to use the patent portfolio jointly acquired with Ericsson. Patents, as the experience of Samsung and HTC show, are an important help in the life of a manufacturer of Android devices.

Another trump card that the company has on its hands is games. In January 2011, Sony announced the PlayStation Certified program (“certified for PlayStation games”) - mobile devices with this status can run PS games. So far, the number of “certified” devices includes only Sony Ericsson smartphones and Sony tablets, but there are rumors that the company will allow other manufacturers into the program. Among these is HTC.

Theoretically, Sony has all the makings to become a manufacturer of popular devices and continue to fight for the market. But given the not so rosy state of the company's financial affairs (Sony itself estimates that its losses this financial year will amount to $3 billion), this requires a lot of effort.