Sony Ericsson has just published its last quarterly reports, and things don’t look good at all for the Japanese manufacturer. Sony Ericsson (now only Sony) has had quite a struggle, as with HTC, as we all know it has been quite late in the dual-core party. Although it had a profitable Q3 but the poor Q4 has dipped its overall performance in the year due to several reasons, as the report notes “intense competition and price erosion” and “restructuring charges”, and “Thailand flooding” for its significant loss for the last quarter.
Sony Ericsson saw a dip in both sales volume and value in Q4, which resulted in a net loss of €207 million. The company only shipped 9 million phones, compared to 11.2 million in Q4 of 2010 and 9.5 million in Q3 of 2010. As a result of the poor performance in what’s usually the most profitable quarter of the year, Sony Ericsson ended the year with a net loss €247. Only 34.4 million Sony Ericsson handset were sold in 2011 as compared to 43.1 million in 2010.
Bert Nordberg, President and CEO of Sony Ericsson, had the following comments on the last financial results coming from the joint venture as it was:
Our fourth quarter results reflected intense competition, unfavorable macroeconomic conditions and the effects of a natural disaster in Thailand this quarter. We are aligning our business to drive profitability and to meet customer needs. In spite of these challenges, throughout 2011 we’ve shifted our business from feature phones to smartphones, and our Android-based smartphone sales in the quarter increased by 65% year-on-year. The Xperia portfolio, including the recently announced Xperia NXT series, will serve as a cornerstone of our smartphone lineup in 2011.
|
Q4 2010 |
Q3 2011 |
Q4 2011 |
FY 2010 |
FY 2011 |
|
| Number of units shipped (million) Average selling price (Euro) |
11.2 |
9.5 |
9.0 |
43.1 |
34.4 |
| Sales (Euro m.) |
1,528 |
1,586 |
1,288 |
6,294 |
5,212 |
| Gross margin (%) |
30% |
27% |
24% |
29% |
28% |
| Operating income (Euro m.) |
39 |
38 |
-227 |
159 |
-206 |
| Operating margin (%) |
3% |
2% |
-18% |
3% |
-4% |
| Restructuring charges (Euro m.) |
-3 |
– |
-93 |
-42 |
-93 |
| Operating income excl. restructuring charges (Euro m.) |
43 |
38 |
-134 |
202 |
-113 |
| Operating margin excl. restructuring charges (%) |
3% |
2% |
-10% |
3% |
-2% |
| Income before taxes (IBT) (Euro m.) |
35 |
31 |
-247 |
147 |
-243 |
| IBT excl. restructuring charges (Euro m.) |
39 |
31 |
-154 |
189 |
-150 |
| Net income (Euro m.) |
8 |
0 |
-207 |
90 |
-247 |
But we can all hope that Sony (without the Ericsson) can surely resurrect it in the coming months. They have got a great start with the Sony Xperia S and Sony Xperia Ion and we can see hope to see some more impressive devices at MWC.
