Sony Ericsson needs to raise 100 million euros to stay afloat, says CFO
by Laura June 
posted May 20th 2009 at 4:31PM
Things haven't looked great for Sony Ericsson -- which reported its sales were down 50% during the first quarter -- for quite a piece of time now. Well, now Sony's CFO has admitted that falling demand combined with a "gap" in its product portfolio has created problems for the company. He also acknowledged that the company needs to raise about 100 million euros by the end of this fiscal year (March of 2010) to keep on trucking. Sony Ericsson is reportedly considering numberless cash-raising options, but no plans are yet set in stone. We wish them luck!
Filed under: Sony Ericsson
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Krishna @ May 20th 2009 7:41PM
Too bad that a company that makes the most stylish and well built phones is struggling. They probably know they are to blame themselves for falling behind customers demands. They come out with great phones only a year late. Look at W995. It would have been a fantastic phone had they released it just when they made it public. Now, 8MP camera phones are normal with Samsung and LG releasing them in several models.
And touch screen phones are the only growing segment and SE looks clueless in that arena. They came out with Xperia which had everything going nice except that they made the screen way too narrow for that resolution. Making the fonts tiny and almost useless for touch use. You need to use a stylus for most actions. They should have released another version of Windows Mobile around then with similarities to HTC Touch HD. Big screen and touch friendly interface. They missed that. Now, they annouced Idou with great hype like 4-6 months back.
Look at how many similar models will already be in the market before it comes out. N97, 5800, Samsung Omnia HD. All these three will feel mostly similar with S60 v5 edition. Which I felt sucked on 5800. So, they will come out with Idou when everyone already is looking for something better than the silly touch interface S50 5th edition has.
They should come out with their own A200 version for touch screens. Copy the best from iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, and S60.
Simple clean interface, nice multi-media, excellent excellent MP3 media player, active standby screen similar to Window Mobile, a great touch screen browser (can use Opera help here or Mozilla), and something new no cell phone yet has.
One good feature to think of to target active lifestyle segment is to include some sort of heart rate moitor, pedometer kind of stuff.
Set new benchmarks for the market to copy you. That should be SE.
Mr. S. @ May 21st 2009 8:23PM
Thank you.
JoeJoe @ May 20th 2009 8:37PM
Se have to drop their Walkman phones, they are just not popular anymore.
Focus on smartphones with touch screen, because that is the way of the future, and do something different.
gotsmart @ May 20th 2009 10:10PM
Sony Ericsson missed the boat a few years ago. When every other phone maker was going thinner, lighter and more stylish, Sony Ericsson dismissed "thin" as "a trend" and kept making heavily-featured phones in 1990s form factors.
The same way Apple never lowers prices, they just add more memory and features at the same price point, Sony Ericsson has been doing the same with size. Just cram more features (ridiculous-megapixel cameras and bloated and redundant "Walkman" crap) into their boxy phones.
Sony Ericsson needs more phones like the T700... great bread-and-butter phones that are thin and sexy. And they need to get more of these phones into the hands of the carriers (and consumers). I can't remember the last desireable SE phone that was available on a North American network.