Sony-Ericsson Sees New Growth Areas In India, Pakistan

Monday June 13, 8:21 AM EDT

SINGAPORE (DOW JONES)--Mobile phone company Sony-Ericsson Monday said it sees new growth areas in emerging markets like India and Pakistan, which are helping drive sales of handsets.

The company also raised its forecast for total industry-wide sales of mobile phones in 2005 to 720 million units.

The world's sixth-largest mobile handset maker had previously expected total unit sales of 680 million in 2005.

"We're doing very well in Pakistan where we are now a strong player there. We continue to grow very strong in India and we're growing with the markets there," Jan Wareby, executive vice-president of Sony Ericsson, told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of a product launch in Singapore.

Wareby didn't elaborate, but said, "If we're not growing faster than the market, we're at least growing with the markets there (South Asia)."

According to research firm Gartner, the company had sales volume of about 9.9 million units in the first quarter, compared with 8.6 million units in the year ago quarter. As of March 31, the company has a 5.5% market share, slightly lower than 5.6% a year earlier.

Sony-Ericsson, a joint venture of Japan's Sony Corp. (SNE) and Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson (ERICY), Monday unveiled four new handsets - the S600i, Z520i, K608i, and the J210i.

Rival Nokia Corp. Monday also unveiled a new line of handsets in Singapore, a day ahead of CommunicAsia2005, an annual communication and IT trade fair.


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