Motorola, Sony Ericsson Down. B&O Out.
1st November 2008
We don't normally cover financial news, but three
significant events have happened recently that
will impact the variety of handsets that are available
to consumers in the future.
 Motorola
Motorola's woes are well documented, but for the
last reporting quarter the handsets business lost a
staggering $840m, pushing Motorola almost $400m into
the red. According to MobileBurn,
Motorola have said that we will no longer develop on
the Symbian / UIQ platform in the future and will instead
concentrate on Windows Mobile and Android for smartphones.
It is also unlikely that the Mobile Division will be
spun off in 2009 as previously planned.
 Sony
Ericsson
Sony Ericsson also reported a quarterly loss, but
this time a more modest $25m. One way that they intend
to improve profitibality it to reduce their handset
range by 20%. We agree with The
Register who say that perhaps the range should be
reduced to 20% of the current line-up. We definitely
think that SE's range is far too large and very confusing..
after all, how many "Walkman" phones do you
really need? There is a rumour that Sony Ericsson
will also pull back from the Symbian / UIQ platform.
 Bang
& Olufsen
B&O
have announced that they will be pulling out
of the mobile phone market, and also stopping co-branding
with others. The B&O/Samsung Serene
and Serenata
handsets are two of the most striking phones that we
have even seen, but the market for €1000 mobile phones
is not so good at the moment. Unfortunately, this may
well indicate that B&O technology will no longer
be found in other Samsung devices. This is a shame,
especially because the Serenata is really what
we think the iPhone should have looked like.
|
