Sony Buys Out Ericsson For $1.45 Billion

Sony will be buying out Ericcson’s shares in Sony Ericsson, for $1.45 Billion

The mobile phone company will come under the control of Sony, allowing it to integrate its mobile functions with the rest of its product lines. Howard Stringer, CEO, President & Chairman of Sony said:

“With a vibrant smartphone business and by gaining access to important strategic IP, notably a broad cross-license agreement, our four-screen strategy is in place. We can more rapidly and more widely offer consumers smartphones, laptops, tablets and televisions that seamlessly connect with one another and open up new worlds of online entertainment. This includes Sony’s own acclaimed network services, like the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network.”

Ericcson will now take a role where it will concentrate on the connectivity issues with Sony devices and also focus on R&D,  Ericsson’s CEO Hans Vettburg announced.

“Today we take an equally logical step as Sony acquires our stake in Sony Ericsson and makes it a part of its broad range of consumer devices. We will now enhance our focus on enabling connectivity for all devices, using our R&D and industry leading patent portfolio to realize a truly connected world.”

Sony Ericsson last big gaming-related launch was the Xperia Play, which has seen underwhelming performance so far.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

20 Comments

  1. Sounds good, but I really hope they can keep the quality of phones they’ve produced in the past. My K800i from around 5 years ago is still going strong as a backup, tough as anything that phone! Intergration with other Sony products is certainly interesting, just hope they’re not all like the Xperia Play…

    • The k800i was amazing. So many people had it, but it was such a solid phone!

    • I totally had one too, awesome phone

  2. Eek, good luck to Sony, Nokia are getting a good raping at the moment. Hopefully they can see the benefits of a less-is-more approach in terms of range of phones!

    • The idea of pushing integration makes sense. My ps3, tv, xperia play and psp all hook up together with some some cool functions. I think it makes complete sense, they should push everything together in the same way apple and Microsoft do.

  3. Happy with my xperia play, it also has good interconnectivity with my PS3, Sony TV and that. But this could only make things better

  4. I love my current Xperia Arc and wouldn’t change it for anything right now, hopefully Sony can keep up and even improve on their current quality of phones.

  5. Will we finally see a true Playstation Phone?

    • I thought the Xperia Play was.

      • I mean like the 3G Vita actually having a call/ text option.
        Something current, and not working with outdated technology.
        I might be wrong, but Xperia Play only does some PS1 stuff, right?

  6. Hope a super thin Ice Cream Sandwich phone with dual cores and a super GPU is in the works.

  7. I recently gave up on sony phones after some poorly performing android phones.. I was dissapointed with my play eventually, ended up being very slow..

  8. I told you this would happen- Could be BIG… REALLY BIG- Let’s hope Sony don’t screw this up…

  9. This was bound to happen someday.They have very good phones by the way.

  10. I bet Nintendo is looking forward to it.

    • But Microsoft will most likely be the one to buy Nintendo out at some point.

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