CHENNAI: `Made in India' Sony Ericsson mobile phones will be out in the market soon.
The company itself is not setting up any manufacturing base in India. It has, however, entered into a production pact with a couple of its global outsourcing manufacturing partners — Flextronics and Foxconn — to make Sony Ericsson brand of mobile phones in India. Flextronics and Foxconn, who provide electronic manufacturing services (EMS), have already moved into Sriperumbudur near Chennai to set up their own production bases.
Sony Ericsson is a 50:50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of Japan and Ericsson AB of Sweden.
The first `Made in India' Sony Ericsson phone is expected to be out in June. Sony Ericsson phones are at present imported from Malaysia.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Miles Flint, President, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, said the company was looking at a capacity of ten million phones by 2009.
At the end of 2006, Sony Ericsson had around nine per cent market share compared with three per cent in 2003. With a GSM subscriber base of 105.4 million, India was among the fastest growing mobile markets in the world, he said.
Initially, the focus would be on making basic colour phones and mid-level music-enabled phones for the domestic market.
These phones would offer some customised features such as local content and keypads, he said. Sony Ericsson would bring more products, especially in the music category, at price points "you have never seen," said.
To a question, Mr. Flint said Sony Ericsson would continue to focus on GSM phones in India. Save for Japan, the company did not intend to get into the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) segment in any other market, he said. Sony Ericsson now joins other top handset makers in the world — Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola — to set up production base in the country.
Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, who was present at the press conference, said the country was adding around seven million mobile subscribers a month. By February-end, there would be totally around 200 million.
