Sony Ericsson's net profit drops by 48% in Q1

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson said Tuesday that its net profit in the first quarter this year was 11 million euros (15.7 million U.S. dollars), down 48 percent over the same period last year.


Its sales dropped from 1.4 billion euros (2.0 billion dollars) in the first three months of 2010 to 1.1 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) this year, a 19 percent decrease, it said in a statement.


"The Japan earthquake made it a challenging quarter operationally and we are experiencing some disruptions to our supply chain," Sony Ericsson's President and CEO Bert Nordberg said in the statement.


As a result, units shipped during the quarter were 8.1 million, a 23-percent decrease year-on-year, due to a decline in the number of feature phones shipped, introduction of new products toward the end of the quarter and seasonality, the statement said.


But average selling price for the quarter was 5 percent higher than the same period last year as a result of product and geographical mix.


The company introduced Android-based smartphone Xperia arc and Xperia PLAY models.


Sony Ericsson estimated that its market share for smartphones during the quarter was about 5 percent in units and about 3 percent in value.


Sony Ericsson forecasts a modest growth in total units in the global handset market for 2011.
(Source:http://news.xinhuanet.com)