Sony Ericsson Dropping Ericsson Name in 2012

Once Ericsson becomes a subsidiary of Sony next month, Android smartphones produced by the company will only sport the Sony brand.

Just before Halloween, Ericsson and Sony Corp announced that the latter company will acquire Ericsson's 50-percent stake in the ten-year joint venture, and that the Ericsson half would be incorporated into the Sony collective. The transaction is still on track to close in January 2012, and will produce a cash consideration of EUR 1.05 billion for Ericsson.

Now an executive is reporting that the Sony Ericsson brand will be phased out by the middle of 2012 -- all smartphones will thus be sold under the single Sony brand. The feature phone portfolio will also be killed off in favor of an all-Android army of phones to take on Android heavyweights such as Samsung and Motorola. Apparently the Xperia line of Android phones is just the beginning.

"A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year," said Kristian Tear, executive VP & head of sales & marketing, Sony Ericsson. "It will also mean that the marketing and advertising investments will go up. We haven't been as fierce as we were a few years back but we will step it up, refocus and invest more in brand-building in select markets and India is one of those markets."

Sony and Ericsson teamed up ten years ago as the latter company -- who was the third largest mobile phone manufacturer at the time -- sought out an Asian firm that could mass-produce cheaper handsets. Sony was also struggling at the time, capturing a mere 1-percent of the global market. The duo thus went on to produce the Walkman and Cyber-shot phones with some success, but entered rough waters in 2007 when the iPhone hit the market at the same time Sony Ericsson chose to stay with Symbian.

In 2009 Sony Ericsson underwent a management change and ditched Symbian altogether, choosing Google's Android OS instead. As of this writing the company commands a small 2-percent of the mobile market despite the success of the PlayStation certified phone, the Xperia Play. But now that Ericsson is part of Sony as a whole rather than just a partner, the company plans to leverage more from Sony's success as a multimedia giant and regain its footing, taking a bigger chunk of the market.

"Sony is the world's biggest entertainment company," he added. "We were earlier a 50-50 JV, but now that we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corp., we expect to gain from its assets on the content, technology and brand side."