Sony has completed its buy-out of Ericsson from the Sony Ericsson handset joint venture, confirming that the business will be renamed Sony Mobile Communications. The company said that it would take the mobile phone market as one of the serious sides, and the mobile phone business as one of the vital elements in the electronics business, with the aim of accelerating convergence between Sony’s lineup of network enabled consumer electronics products, including smartphones, tablets, TVs and PCs.
The companies first announced the agreement in October 2011, at which point Ericsson highlighted “declining synergies in combining network and handset operations.” Ericsson today said that its gain on the transaction will be “approximately SEK7.5 billion (US$1.1 billion),” which will be reported as part of its first quarter 2012 results.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sony and Ericsson have also entered into a broad IP cross-licensing agreement.
Sony Ericsson is one of those brands which joined the bandwagon led by HTC and Motorola which said that they got poor results during the Christmas this season. When Sony Ericsson launched a 4G LTE based mobile phone recently, they didn’t put the name Ericsson anywhere and it was just Sony which was branded. Now the focus would be on Sony during the Mobile World Congress where we could be seeing any official public announcement of gadgets after the buyout is done.
Sony to rename Ericsson venture as Sony Mobile Communications