Sony Ericsson doubles sales in an already expanded segment
Gazeta Mercantil - 05/27/2008
Japanese-Swedish joint venture Sony Ericsson has seen its operations in the Country grow. The expectations are to more than double its sales of cell phones in 2008, going from 5 million in 2007 to 12 million till next December. From this total, 10 million may be consumed by the domestic market and 2 million exported to other Latin American countries. Such expansion results from the combination of an organic growth of the Brazilian cell phone market and the advance of the brand over the market share of other brands, affirms the president of Sony Ericsson do Brasil, Silvio Stagni. According to statistics from the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel), the universe of cell users saw the incorporation of 6.8 million new clients from January to April this year. In these same four months of last year, growth was accelerated but did not exceed half of it, registering 3 million new clients. According to Stagni, a significant growth in sales of new sets has come to add to old clients' sets' replacement, which is each time bigger, achieving, at the end of the year, a potential market of 50 million telephones. From these 50 million, one-fifth - 10 million - will be Sony Ericsson phones, foresees the president of the brand that has 25 models in the Country. Part of them is completely developed by Sony Ericsson and another part has the project and design outsourced and receives, in the end of the process, a characteristic of the company, which may be the purple color this year. The constitution of the joint venture took place in 2001 and, in 2002 the company started selling nearly 200 thousand cell phones in the Country. In 2003 and 2004, when the production started to be domestic, the number remained between 200 thousand and 500 thousand. Sony Ericsson hired the Flextronics and Foxcom outsourcing plants, in Sorocaba and Indaiatuba, respectively. In 2005, it was the first time the production doubled to 1.1 million cell phones due to the introduction of the music line. In 2006 a new leap to 2 million happened, and in 2007, this figure more than doubled, reaching 5 million. This time the expansion was caused by a great leap in marketing investment, affirmed Stagni. The perspective for this year is to reach 10 million in the domestic market, affirmed the officer, not to mention the 2 million to be sent to Latin American countries until December. In this period there were two allocations of funds from the headquarters, in 2001 and 2003. "Since then, we have reinvested what we have produced", concluded Stagni.