According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Sony Ericsson is looking to become one of the top three handset manufacturers in the world. CEO Miles Flint told the paper that the company is looking to expand beyond its niche of high-end camera and media-centric phones and address a broader market.
In recent months, the partnership between Japanese Sony and Swedish Ericsson has begun releasing more basic, low-cost handsets aimed at expanding emerging markets such as India.
But this strategy has not proved easy for other handset makers, including Motorola, which predicts its mobile phone unit will post a loss for this year. Sony Ericsson CEO Flint told the Journal that the entry-level handset market "remains intensely competitive."
Sony Ericsson currently has a market share of 9%, while Nokia, the world's largest phone maker holds 37% of the market share.
The company says that it is still working to expand its handset lineup of phones under 100 euros, but Flint told the Journal that he isn't interested in competing with the very low cost phones offered by some rivals.
With the current economic climate, wireless operators face shrinking marketing budgets and reduced consumer spending.
Globally, the credit crunch is very much alive, and operators will be tightening their belts into the foreseeable future by putting off capital purchases.
