If recent reports are to be believed, it’s expected that Sony will drop the Ericsson brand from its smartphones starting in mid-2012. This step was widely expected to happen back in October when Sony acquired the 50% stake owned by Ericsson for an eye-watering €1.05 billion.
In an interview with Times of India, a Sony executive said that the Sony Ericsson brand would be completely phased out as the company looked to focus on becoming a “complete smartphone company”, selling all new smartphones including the Xperia range under the Sony brand.
Times of India report that Sony currently holds around 2% of the global smartphone market, but has huge potential thanks to Sony’s worldwide presence as the world’s biggest entertainment company; and therefore the company expects that its smartphone market share will gain due to its assets.
The reason that the Sony Ericsson brand will not begin to be phased out until the middle of next year is due to the fact that Sony still needs the required approvals of the acquisition before this can take place.
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