Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Sony Ericsson brand to be phased out by mid-2012

by XB on December 5, 2011
in News

Sony plans to phase out the Sony Ericsson brand by the middle of 2012 according to Kristian Tear, Executive VP & Head of Sales & Marketing at Sony Ericsson, speaking to The Times of India. Smartphones released beyond this date will simply be branded Sony says Tear.


A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year. It will also mean that the marketing and advertising investments will go up. We haven’t been as fierce as we were a few years back but we will step it up, refocus and invest more in brand-building in select markets and India is one of those markets,” said Tear.



There has been a lot of confusion from some readers wondering why we still refer to the entity as Sony Ericsson and why some of the recent leaks of upcoming handsets still have the Sony Ericsson badge on them. The simple answer is that Sony can only consolidate the acquisition when it has formally closed and that is not expected to happen until January 2012. This is when the acquisition is expected to receive final and regulatory approval.

However, once formally complete, Sony plans to leverage as many of the assets to reach its ambition of becoming a leader in Android smartphones. “Sony is the world’s biggest entertainment company. We were earlier a 50-50 JV, but now that we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corp. We expect to gain from its assets on the content, technology and brand side,” Tear added.

Via The Times of India

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