Sony Ericsson said Thursday it will launch three new handsets on the market early in the fourth quarter, unveiling details of new products designed to help stall a slump in mobile phone sales.
One of the products, the Satio, is a renamed version of the Idou phone that the Swedish-Japanese company originally announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
It will be joined by two other new handsets, the Aino and the Yari, as part of the company’s strategy to beef up its line of products that merge communication and entertainment.
The Satio has a 12 megapixel camera, free access to Hollywood movies and a touch-screen keypad, while the Yari is handsfree gaming focused, and the Aino concentrates on music and videos.
“This is a new Sony Ericsson you see before you today,” Steve Walker, vice president of marketing, Sony Ericsson Mobile, said at the launch in London. “It’s taking all the things we have become ... and taking a big step beyond.”
Sony Ericsson, the world’s fourth-largest maker of mobile phones, has been struggling amid a wider downturn in mobile phone sales.
Overall handset sales fell 8.5% in the first quarter of this year, according to research firm Gartner Inc. “Mid-market” phones—traditionally Sony Ericsson’s turf—suffered the steepest decline.
In contrast, demand for so-called smartphones such as the iPhone and Nokia’s 5800 is growing, with sales forecast to lift some 27% this year. The new Satio also is a smartphone.
Sony Ericsson posted a 293 million euro loss in the first quarter as demand for its handsets fell by around 35 percent, which the company attributed to the global financial crisis.
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