Sony Ericsson 3Q Profit Buoyed by New Products

STOCKHOLM -(Dow Jones)- Sony Ericsson Monday said net profit advanced 16% in the third quarter as new product launches, including the Walkman music phone, helped the world's sixth-largest mobile phone maker gain market share.

The company, a joint venture of Sweden's Telefon AB LM Ericsson and Japan's Sony Corp., said net profit rose to EUR104 million in the quarter from EUR90 million a year earlier. Sales gained 22% to EUR2.06 billion.

Sony Ericsson sold 13.8 million mobile phones in the third quarter, up 29% from a year earlier, buoyed by the K750 camera phone and the high-end W800 Walkman handset.

Earlier in 2005, earnings had been hit as Sony Ericsson suffered from a lackluster range of handsets and higher spending to develop new models.

"This has been a good quarter for Sony Ericsson, proving that our strategy of expanding the product portfolio upward...is paying off," Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson, said in a statement.

In the third quarter, Sony Ericsson's average selling price - a key benchmark for financial analysts - fell to around EUR149 from EUR157 a year earlier. The ASP recovered from the EUR137 seen in the first and second quarters of this year thanks to sales of the K750 and the W800.

The pretax profit margin of 7.3%, while down from a high of 8.1% a year earlier, still represented a recovery from the 5.4% seen in both the first and second quarters of 2005.

Company Web site: http://www.sonyericsson.com

-By Magnus Hansson, +46 8 545 130 91, magnus.hansson@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 17th October 2005