Despite having reported its seventh straight quarterly loss in January of this year, the Sony Ericsson joint venture would still seem to have the support of Hans Vestberg, the new CEO of Ericsson.
Responding to questions about whether the company would retain its 50 per cent holding in Sony Ericsson, Vestberg stated that it would hold on to the stake in the world's fourth biggest handset maker (by sales) for at least three years.
The CEO maintained that partnering with the world's biggest consumer electronics firm would bring increasing benefits, and expected the JV to move out of the red towards the end of 2010 as new phones hit the shelves and the handset market begins to recover. "Sony Ericsson is going to come out of its tough period and be profitable again," Vestberg said.
Separately, the CEO of the struggling JV, Bert Nordberg, claimed that the return to profitability would come from success in the high-end market. "When we've done that, we have an interest in the volume market, but we only want to do high-end phones there, not cheap phones," said the CEO. "We think people who buy the cheap phones, they really, really would like to have a better one, and that's what we are going to provide."
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Reuters
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