Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Ericsson overlook? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric L who wrote (4840)	10/1/2001 8:56:06 AM
From: Eric L	Respond to of 5390

re: 'Sony Ericsson' >> 'Sony Ericsson' Kicks Into Life Jan Strupczewski Reuters 01 October 2001 The mobile phone joint venture between Sweden's Ericsson and Japan's Sony started as planned on Monday with the brand name "Sony Ericsson", which the company hopes will be the world's leading cellphone brand in five years. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications is made up of the loss-making handset divisions of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, the biggest producer of mobile networks and number three handset supplier, and Sony Corp, the world's biggest producer of consumer audio and video equipment. The company starts in tough times when world handset sales are likely to stay flat or even fall for the first time, from last year's 408 million units, because of the global economic slowdown. It would challenge today's biggest cellphone maker Nokia and second biggest Motorola. Sony Ericsson will start with a capital of $500 million and have a 10-member board - on which each partner has an equal number of seats - headed by Ericsson Chief Executive Kurt Hellstrom. Sony's Katsumi Ihara will be president, with Ericsson's Jan Wareby as second in command. The venture's first product will be a 2.5 generation GPRS phone, which would provide always-on, high-speed connections to the Internet, Sony said. It would later produce third generation handsets that can display videoclips. "We are very much looking forward to...launching our first products during next year," Ihara said in a statement on Monday. The telecoms industry's great hope - high-speed GPRS phones - have been slow to take off. Sony Ericsson has said the venture would be profitable from the start, even though it admited it was a challenging task. The company is starting lean with 3,500 employees worldwide - only 20 percent of what Ericsson's consumer products division used to employ before huge losses forced it to outsource all production to contract manufacturer Flextronics and sack more than 10,000 staff. Sony, with its consumer focus, will be responsible for the design of the handsets, and a Japanese designer will run Ericsson's mobile phone lab in Lund. Ericsson's share was 3.4 percent down at 0900 GMT, sliding broadly in pace with the EuroStoxx technology index. <, - Eric -