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Report: Sony To Take Over Sony Ericsson

New York – Cellphone maker Sony Ericsson, jointly owned by Sony and Ericsson, declined to
comment on a Wall Street Journal report that Sony is nearing a deal to purchase
Ericsson’s stake of the company.

Sony and Ericsson combined their
cellphone operations in 2001 into a 50/50
joint venture. In 2008 and 2009, the company posted two consecutive years of
net losses, downsized, and returned to
profitability in each quarter of fiscal 2010 and in the
first quarter of fiscal 2011. The company
then slipped
back into the red in its 2011 fiscal second quarter.

 Sony Ericsson will announce third-quarter 2011
result on Oct. 14, when it might respond to questions from analysts about
Sony’s possible purchase of the other half of Sony Ericsson.

Analyst Jeff Kagan said he believes a
purchase “makes a lot of sense.” If a company “is being pulled in this
direction and that by different companies with different strategies, it will
never break in to the big time,” he said. “Smartphones are important going
forward. However, there needs to
be a singular focus.”

 Sony and Ericsson, he contended, have been
“struggling to try and manage the smart phone opportunity over the last several
years. It has been a disaster.”

Sony Ericsson is the world’s
sixth-largest wireless phone maker, he said.

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