Sony Ericsson Ships 9 million Xperia Android Phones

With Sony Ericssons Q4 results in, it turned out to be a case of good news bad news for the struggling partnership that has been having high hopes on their new phones. In the last year, Sony Ericsson has been looking to turn their fortunes around, especially with the rise of popular devices like the iPhone and Android has been their savior like almost all other phone makers. During this time, Sony has released the Xperia X10, X10 Mini, X10 Mini Pro which have now surpassed 9 million shipped. This is the good news for Sony and this achievement is that much more impressive when you consider that the Xperia X10 is the only one of the series that was released in the US and it was a product that was never advertised. Other sites have noted that this is equally impressive because most of this fleet was running around during 2010 with the outdated Android 1.6 and only recently saw an upgrade path to 2.1. Still the bad news is that this comes as profits dip with the company reporting a moderate €35 million pre-tax profit for Q4. Though this is below what the company had hoped for and lower then previous quarters, this is still a large turnaround for a division that was losing money left and right just a little over a year ago.

Editorial: Sony Wants to Become a Top Android Handset Maker. Can They Do It?

Sony Ericsson finally got into the Android handset race mid 2010 and its been a bumpy ride for the two company partnership ever sense. Though they offer a few models, starting with the current flagship Xperia X10, followed by the Xperia X10 mini and Xperia X10 Mini Pro, Sony has been unable to gain much traction within the cellphone world (though to be fair to them, the company currently claims that they have 17% of the Android market in Europe). Some might point towards the fact that its been hard to find their devices out of few Sony Style stores and now Best Buy promotion. Other might think that the problem has been with the lackluster Android support that we have chronicled on this site with the Xperia X10 finally getting Android 2.1 in late December, months after devices like the Droid X, X2 and HTC Evo had them. Still, Sony Ericsson has been bullish on its prospects and the company has gone on record, stating that it wants to be the top Android handset provider. Can they do it? Currently, I say no.