Sony Ericsson Sold 22 Million Android Devices, Go all Smartphone-Only In 2012

A day after Google announced that 190 million Android devices have been manufactured to date, Sony Ericsson this morning revealed that 22 million of those that were sold were its Android-powered Xperia smartphones. The Q3 11 number is still down from the 10.4 million SE moved in Q3 2010. The average selling price was up in Q3 2011 to 166 euros compared to 156 euro last quarter.

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Sony Ericsson has announced that it plans to shift its entire mobile phone efforts exclusively to the smartphone category. In fact, 80 percent of the company’s sales now comes from higher-end mobile devices, which is why Sony Ericsson will be shifting its entire product portfolio to smartphones during 2012, the company said.
Sony Ericsson estimates that its share of the global Android-based smartphone market during Q3 was approximately 12 percent in volume. What this means for consumers is that Android fans, often plagued by handset makers' shifting positions on long-term support of the Android platform, now have one more reliable brand in which to safely invest their Android Marketplace dollars.

The other interesting wrinkle in this unfolding story is the fact that Sony is rumored to be in talks to buy out the company in a deal that could be worth around $1.3 billion. As the company’s President and CEO Bert Nordberg put it recently: they probably should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it was introduced.

The recent launch of the Xperia Play represented a relatively successful pairing of the two company's efforts. Such a move acquire the handset maker could help Sony unify it's mobile and gaming offerings, thereby allowing it to compete more directly with the likes of Samsung and Apple.

The company broke even – albeit barely – during Q3, after making a €49 million (~$67.6 million) profit in the third quarter last year, and reported a tiny year-on-year drop in revenue. Total sales for Q3 11 added up to 1,586 million euro compared to 1,193 million euro in Q2 2011 and 1,603 million euro in Q3 2010. SE has also stated that 80% of the sales it makes are smartphones and it has shipped 22 million Xperia smartphones so far.

Units shipped during the quarter were 9.5 million, a 9 percent decrease year-on-year due to a decline in ‘feature phone’ shipments. The biggest thing that came out of the earnings event was the factoid that SE pans to move its entire portfolio to smartphones in 2012.