The days are now numbered for the once partnership that begin between Sony and Ericsson 10 years ago. The two companies are in midst of filling the final paper work that would end the 50/50 partnership. Though in the early days, the partnership was hailed between the two companies, thanks to Apple and the advent of the smartphone rise, Sony Ericsson began to fall behind and unable to compete with Apple and other Android makers like Samsung and HTC. Kristian Tear, executive VP & head of sales & marketing of Sony Ericsson,

 “A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year. 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 is hoping that by bringing all smartphone operations in house and under one roof, the company will be better able to leverage it’s many assets, including their technological strength that has the company building industry leading televisions with the Bravia line and their powerful gaming machine, the PlayStation 3. Sony of course has their hands in the entertainment industry as well with Sony Pictures and Sony/BMG (music).

 “Sony is the world’s biggest entertainment company. 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,” 

When looking at the larger smartphone market, Sony Ericsson currently only holds 2% of the market thought that number raises to 19% if we consider only Android smartphones. Sony hopes that by bringing in their media and consumer electronic background to the smartphone race, they can create some unique Android smartphones and rise to the top of the Android totem pole, something that they’ve been striving for during the past few years. The company has had some unfortunate setbacks though, mostly out of their hands.

 “Last eight quarters have been good for us and we are proud of that. We went from focusing only on volumes to value but the big setback was what happened in Japan with the Tsunami, which put us back for this year quite a bit. But we are going in the right direction,” 

With a large fragmentation happening in the Android market and little that differentiates one device from another, Sony has a unique opportunity to pull together all of their assets and offer would be Android buyers and switchers a different take and ecosystem, something that Apple has been able to do.

Discuss:

Do you think Sony has a real shot at escalating in the Android field or are they poised to stay a distant player? Also, what unique property of Sony would you leverage in a new Sony Android smartphone?

[Via Time of India]