(1) A difficult start
1. Cooperation opportunities
Sony established Sony Communications Network as early as November 1995, and launched the "So-net" Internet service early the following year (1996), which was its first "pawn" in the field of communications.
Then in 1997, when the GSM (2G) mobile phone development was in full swing, Sony began to enter the mobile phone business again, and took advantage of this to eat a bite of "meat".
Among the models released that year, the CMD-Z1 was an extremely classic device - a "small brick" that combined the design of "Cato", folding microphone, folding antenna and "jog dial" wheel technology.
Coincidentally, 1997 was an important year for Ericsson to reach the top of the Chinese mobile phone market. That is to say, at the most brilliant time of Ericsson's mobile phone, Sony mobile phones were just beginning to "bubble".
In the following 1998, Ericsson continued to call for the storm in the Chinese market. However, that year, Nokia began to "super-god" - squeezing out Motorola with unrivaled shipments and becoming the world's first.
Ericsson, on the other hand, was still immersed in the success of its communications business (due to the rise of 2G in the 90s, Ericsson's infrastructure business grew by leaps and bounds), and in 1999 it lost the throne of China.
Since then, Ericsson has fallen from the top – and in 2000 it fell out of the world's top three. To add insult to injury, the "dot-com bubble crisis" erupted that year, and Ericsson lost money for the first time in half a century.
As for Sony, there is still no breakthrough (although there was an overheated boom when the phone was first launched), and a new model was not even launched in 1998, and a new model was launched in 1999.
In the end, it is too late to enter the GSM market, and the market cake has long been divided by the giants - Sony can only drink some "leftover soup" in frustration.
2. Cooperation begins
In 2001, Ericsson announced that it would outsource mobile phone production and concentrate on mobile phone technology development, design, branding and marketing.
I was worried that my own mobile phone business could not find a way out (less than 1% of the global mobile phone market share), so when Sony heard the news of Ericsson's mobile phone production outsourcing, it thought: design, branding, marketing these things are familiar with ah!
Finally, in October 2001, Sony and Ericsson formally formed a joint venture - each 50% and merged their mobile phone businesses, headquartered in London. At this point, Sony Ericsson was officially born.
Since SoAi was born, it is necessary to expand the history of its logo. This Sony Ericsson "Green Genie" logo was announced in 2002 and was fascinated by countless Sony enthusiasts and design professionals!
The highlight of this pinnacle design is the dynamic atmosphere it produces, perfectly combining the style of Sony of the East and Ericsson of the West, and is the representative of aesthetic styling and advanced technology. In an interview with Takuya Kawagoi (lead designer) of Sony Tokyo Design Center, he said:
"It took Sony's design team two months to turn the logo from a concept to a visual identity, and we made about 150-200 drawings, and finally got the result."
In early 2002, Sony Ericsson launched its first mobile phone, the C1002S. In August of the same year, a very classic mobile phone was launched - the world's first T68i that supports MMS.
Compared with the original machine of Soai, the T68i is obviously more famous (still in the Sony Museum), because it can be used to take pictures and transmit MMS messages through an external camera accessory, which was "black technology" in those days.
Although the emergence of new products did not immediately reverse the "loss" situation for Sony Ericsson, these novel products have been recognized by many consumers.
3. Break the deadlock
At the beginning of 2003, SOAI launched a very classic Symbian UIQ platform smart machine - P800 (National Bank model P802). On this phone, you can finally see the stylish "little green ball" logo.
The shape design of this smartphone comes from the previous Sony mobile phone, and after turning the keyboard over, you can see the 16 million color large touch screen, and it also has a built-in digital lens, which was very popular in the business field at that time.
But the key to turning Soai around is actually another mobile phone launched in May of the same year - T610 (National Bank model T618).
The phone, which was designed in a very different style than other products on the market at the time, sold 11 million units in the following two years! And laid the design style of Sony Ericsson mobile phones.
In the end, SOAI successfully turned a profit in October 2003! In the past, when the joint venture suffered continuous losses, rumors of "dispersal" were flying, but now it has finally survived.
Since then, the ultra-classic K700 has been released in 2004, and the addition of flash has further enhanced the photo experience; This year's flagship model, the S700, is a screw-cap camera machine, and the lens cap design of the switch control is very unique.
Also released in the same year was the P900 (Bank of China model P908), an upgraded version of the P800, which is still focused on the business market. Soai is to use this kind of less style but exquisite marketing strategy to distinguish the "machine sea tactics" of competitors.
(2) The glorious years
1, "Dafa" is powerful
At the end of June 2004, Beijing Ericsson Putian Mobile Communications Co., Ltd., established in 1995, officially changed its name to Beijing Flexon Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. (BMC), which is controlled by Sony Ericsson.
This is the world's largest production base in mainland China, with more than 11,000 employees. By the end of 2006, the company's sales reached 27 billion yuan, and its products were directly exported to 113 countries and regions.
In 2005, with the launch of the K750, SOAI's mobile phone business will usher in a highlight moment, because the later SOAI "Audio and Video Building" will be built on the basis of this model.
In July 2005, the W800, the pioneer of the SOAI Walkman series, was officially launched, this mobile phone perfectly combines Sony's Walkman music elements and K750's top photo quality, which has surprised countless people as soon as it came out!
By the end of 2005, W800 was also rated as "Best Mobile Phone of the Year" by CCTV; Less than half a year after its launch, sales exceeded 3 million units! It can be described as a momentary scenery!
In 2006, the pioneering work of the SOAI Cyber-shot series, the K800 (Bank of China model K790), was also born, which was the world's first mobile phone equipped with a xenon flash and ATI discrete graphics card.
This is a high-end camera phone that combines the essence of Sony's "Cyber-shot" series of digital cameras - the 3.2 million pixel digital lens was the top at the time, and the cool lens cap design on the back was the "essence" of this joint name.
In addition, this mobile phone also appeared in the popular movie "007: Casino Royale" (this movie belongs to Sony's film and television content resources, pure internal support), and its popularity has increased rapidly, and it has continued to sell more than 4.5 million units since then!
2. The peak era
The successive launches of Walkman series music mobile phones and Cyber-shot series camera mobile phones have made SoAi's "exquisite strategy" a great success, and these two series have also built a core high-end product matrix with the P series UIQ smart phones.
The success of these series is inseparable from Sony's design resources, electronic technology resources, and entertainment resources, so Sony Ericsson can be described as a model enterprise for successful cooperation at that time.
In 2006, with the launch of the M600 (the mobile phone used by the Bond girl in the 007 movie), the choices of smartphone users were further enriched, and the increasingly rich product line also made SoAi's profits grow steadily.
As its well-positioned products gradually penetrate into the hearts of the people, Sony Ericsson's market share is gradually expanding, and Sony Ericsson has finally become the new darling of the mobile phone industry!
Finally, in 2006, it successfully squeezed out the Korean mobile phone manufacturer LG, ranking fourth in the world mobile phone market, and Soai has become a "dark horse" in the mobile phone industry!
At the end of May 2007, Beijing Soeputian announced that the 100 million mobile phones were officially offline. It was also in this year that SOAI began to covet the third place in the world, with the goal of squeezing out another Korean mobile phone manufacturer - Samsung!
In February 2008, the Xperia brand, which was later inherited by Sony mobile phones, was officially born. At the same time, the brand's pioneering work, the Xperia X1, was also officially unveiled.
The Xperia brand is designed to seamlessly integrate mobile Internet and multimedia entertainment experience into a unique and perfect design. The X1 is the first mobile phone based on the Windows Mobile system launched by SoAi.
Since then, the P series has officially withdrawn from the historical stage, and with it, there is also UIQ, a niche Symbian system branch platform. This also means that SOAI has been deeply engaged in the UIQ platform for many years, but has not formed its own core competitiveness.
3. The sky does not come true
In 2007, Sony Ericsson made a big wish to squeeze out Samsung to become the third in the world, and it continued to stay in the fourth place in the world. On the contrary, Samsung has made rapid progress - squeezing out Motorola to become the second in the world!
In 2008, SoAi saw Motorola as a target again, and it was still the third place in the world. However, this year's financial crisis intensified, the global mobile phone market suffered a major blow, and consumer demand was sluggish.
When the 2008 annual report came out, Sony Ericsson recorded its first annual loss since turning a profit in 2003! At the same time, shipments also declined significantly, and the global market share directly shrank to 8%.
As a result, the global ranking fell back to the top five position, and LG, which was previously suppressed, slammed into third place! At the same time, in its most important Chinese mobile phone market, the hard-won runner-up position has been replaced by Samsung again!
Soai's smart flagship model X1 has repeatedly bounced tickets in this context, and has been exposed to quality problems after it was finally listed; And this flagship smart model has not been able to enter the huge Chinese market, which is even more disappointing!
At the same time, the C series that replaced the K series opened in 2008 did not continue the glory of the previous game, and the Cyber-shot series survived for a year in this embarrassing environment, and finally came to an end in 2009.
In order to reverse the decline, in February 2009, Sony Ericsson launched a new smartphone series - the U series (from Entertainment Unlimited), and the first flagship model of the series was the U1 (Satio).
It perfectly combines the musical elements of the Walkman series, the photo quality of the Cyber-shot series, and the touch screen experience of the Xperia series, which can be described as a generation of entertainment machine king!
As a result, Sony Ericsson made old mistakes again, and the U1, which was named "the world's first 12-megapixel smartphone", was not launched until October 2009, so this magic machine only played a one-quarter sales driving role, and the results were far lower than expected.
(3) The road to loneliness
1. Android "Straw"
Then, in November 2009, SoAi made a desperate move, abandoned Windows Mobile for Android, and released its first Android smartphone, the Xperia X10.
The X10 was a veritable Android king at the time, with extremely powerful configurations. But what is strange is that SoAi has repeated the mistake of "early release, late listing".
At the beginning of the release, Android 1.6 was the latest Android version, but by the time the X10 was released (only released in the second quarter of 2010), the latest version had been updated to Android 2.0.
The X10 cannot be upgraded in time due to deep customization of the system. To add insult to injury, this is just the time when Motorola's legendary model, the Droid (Milestone) equipped with Android 2.0 system, was launched!
At the same time, the Android magic machine listed at the same time also includes Google's own Nexus one, Samsung's Galaxy S (i9000), HTC's G7 (Desire), these four magic machines directly surrounded the X10!
It can be seen that throughout 2009, Sony Ericsson still did not get out of trouble. So when the 2009 annual report came out, SoAi continued to record annual losses without suspense, while its global market share declined again.
After Xperia X10, Soai extended the Xperia brand to the low-end smartphone market, and successively released X10mini (E10i), X10mini pro (U20i), X8 (E15i), but unfortunately did not achieve particularly gratifying results.
The only highlight is that the X10mini has won the "2010 International Red Dot Design Award" and the 2010~2011 European Best Mobile Phone Award.
2. Give it a shot
Although Sony Ericsson did not have a very bright performance in 2010, it benefited from the increase in gross profit margin brought about by the recovery of market demand after the financial crisis, and finally achieved a turnaround in 2010 after two consecutive years of losses.
However, because BlackBerry (successfully entered the Chinese market) and Apple (launched the epoch-making iPhone 4) performed too well in the mobile phone market in 2010, Soai did not even retain the position of the world's top five - it was directly classified as "Others".
At the beginning of 2011, in order to regain its former "glory", Sony Ericsson released the new flagship Xperia arc LT15i at the CES conference, and beat the iPhone 4 with a body thickness of 8.7mm, becoming the slimnest smartphone at that time.
This extremely classic "small man's waist" is not only equipped with the latest version of the Android 2.3 system at that time, but also incorporates a number of advanced technologies from Sony, which can be described as a collection of Sony's design essence and technical essence A Dacheng intelligent flagship.
For example, the Mobile BRAVIA Engine image engine on the screen and the Exmor R CMOS (back-illuminated sensor) on the rear main camera are Sony's unique high-end technologies.
For Sony Ericsson, the newly released Xperia arc LT15i is an extremely important product, and it is not difficult to see from the new naming that SOAI is seeing it as a new starting point to succeed in the field of smartphones.
At the MWC conference in February 2011, SOAI released three new products, namely Xperia neo MT15i, Xperia pro MK16i, and Xperia PLAY Z1i.
The fame of these "Three Musketeers" is second only to the flagship LT15i, especially the cool PSP handheld slide design of the PLAY Z1i, which attracted the attention of countless people as soon as it was released! However, due to the small number of PSP games supported, its market performance is not as good as the other two.
3. Don't ask for love
On May 24, 2011, Sony Ericsson held the "Smart Three Musketeers" press conference, and launched the Xperia mini ST15i, Xperia mini pro SK17i and Walkman WT18i in the Chinese market.
Among them, WT18i is the first series flagship after the Walkman series returns and joins the Android camp, and the familiar Walkman professional players, super stereo speakers, dynamic LED flashing lights and karaoke functions are all back!
The other two "little generals" not only support 720P HD video shooting, but also equipped with a Reality Display screen using Sony's Mobile BRAVIA image processing engine, which can be described as a representative of "short and sharp".
On June 22, 2011, Sony Ericsson released two new models in Singapore, namely the Xperia ray ST18i designed for women and the Xperia active ST17i of the rugged Android smartphone.
Both of these were very famous SoAi smartphones at the time, especially the "crescent-shaped" indicator at the home button of the ST18i, which was designed very elegantly. SOAI also abandoned deep system customization to be able to update the Android version in a timely manner.
In addition, the rhythm of the release of new machines in 2011 not only grasped very well, but also changed the old problem of "early release, late launch" - the interval between the release and the launch of these new machines did not exceed 4 months, which can be described as doing its best.
However, under Huawei's step-by-step pressure, Ericsson has encountered great pressure in the communications market. At the same time, Sony Ericsson suffered setbacks in the mobile phone market one after another, and in 2010 it fell directly out of the world's top five first-line camp, and in 2011, although it worked hard, it was still hopeless to return to the first-line camp.
So, in order to focus on the communications field to maintain its main business advantages, Ericsson decided to abandon its mobile phone business (which they thought was a burden at the time). However, the joint venture is an important strategic business for Sony (after all, no matter how much the ranking declines, it is much better than the Sony mobile phone more than a decade ago).
On October 27, 2011, Sony announced the acquisition of 50% of Sony Ericsson's shares. After the deal was completed in February the following year, Ericsson received 1.05 billion euros in cash, and Soai changed its name to Sony Mobile. A month before the deal was completed, Sony also released a classic flagship - LT26i.
End:
In the acquisition, Sony claimed to have obtained extensive intellectual property cross-licensing agreements covering all products and services, as well as five important patent groups related to wireless mobile technology, which shows that Ericsson has given Sony a lot of benefits.
At the same time, the integration of the smartphone business has perfected Sony's "four-screen (the other three screens are tablets, laptops, and TVs)", and can also be combined with Sony's network service platform and entertainment network, thus becoming an important part of Sony's network consumer electronics platform.
In addition, Sony Ericsson has generated a profit of about 1.5 billion euros in the past ten years of business operations and paid a total of about 1.9 billion euros in dividends to the two parent companies - which means that the dividends received by Sony are basically worth the purchase money!
In the third quarter of 2011, Sony Ericsson's global Android mobile phone market share reached 11%, so there was a good reason for Sony's acquisition decision at that time. However, the glory of the past does not mean that the future will still be bright.
After 2012, Sony mobile phones directly could not even enter the top ten global sales - including ZTE, Huawei, TCL and HTC and other Android "upstarts". It can be seen that Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have begun to rise, and the giants of the past have gradually fallen lonely.
In 2014, Sony's "four-screen strategy" officially went bankrupt, because VAIO's computer business was sold in that year, the TV business was spun off to form a self-financing independent subsidiary, and the tablet business, like the mobile phone business, was losing ground in the global market.
At the end of March 2019, Sony closed its factory in Beijing (BMC, or Soeputian). At the same time, the global market share of Sony mobile phones has fallen to less than 0.2% this year!
Further reading:
Sony Xperia series classic flagship inventory
Sony's origins and 50-year history panorama - the legend of the "Dafa" in the electronic audio and video industry
The 100-year history of Ericsson - from the king of communication to the defeat of Huawei
Walkman and Cyber-shot series summary | A classic interpretation of "A Lifetime of Love"
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