Sony Ericsson: 9% market share, profit down 17%

Sony Ericsson saw a 17 percent drop in profit during its fourth quarter because of higher costs and taxes, despite a higher number of phones shipped. The company earned $555 million during the last few months of 2007, and sales remained nearly unchanged at about $5.61 billion. The handset maker shipped 18 percent more phones in the quarter, but operating costs jumped 16.2 percent to $1.8 billion. The company estimated that the global handset market increased to 1.1 billion units last year, which means Sony Ericsson attained 2 percent more of the market for a 9 percent global market share.

For more on Sony Ericsson's Q4:
- read this article from the New York Times