Posted on Monday, March 23 2009 @ 20:09 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Sony Ericsson shocked investors on Friday, the world's fourth largest handset maker said it would sell barely half of the phones it sold last quarter. The company expects it will sell just 14 million phones this quarter, while the most pessimistic analyst estimate was 15.5 million. Sony Ericsson estimates Q1 2009 will be a very weak quarter, with a pretax loss of 340-390 million euros.
Sony Ericsson said it expected to make a pretax loss of 340-390 million euros ($459 million-$526 million) in the quarter as it heads into a second year of losses.
"It's a real catastrophe. Those are very big losses and they are probably losing a lot of market share," said Greger Johansson, from analyst firm Redeye.
"It's obvious that the volumes are much lower than the market had thought. And first and foremost, the losses are much, much bigger," he said.
Sony Ericsson, the no. 4 global handset maker after Nokia, Samsung and LG, said it expects gross margins to decline both year-on-year and sequentially.
Source: Reuters
