Sony Ericsson is increasing its efforts to get a larger slice of the mobile phone accessories market in SA.

According to Colin Williamson, marketing manager for Sony Ericsson SA, the company has made its accessories offerings in the local market more of a priority for the future. It recently gathered a number of resellers to introduce its latest accessories, in an effort to increase consumer sales.

Williamson says the company is working hard at upping its accessories game and getting more dealers and resellers involved, which includes keeping them informed of its latest technologies.

Sonja Shear, head of marketing at Sony Ericsson SA, says: “We have had challenges selling accessories through third parties and the channel, and we did not focus on distributors in the past, but things are changing now.”

The company has also started bundling speakers with phones, especially the company’s Walkman range of handsets, to boost accessory sales.

Sony Ericsson accessories were rather absent from dealers’ shelves in the past, and mostly only available from the Sony Ericsson store at Vodaworld in Midrand.

Shear says adding accessories to phones presents dealers with an up-sell opportunity, and believes dealers will take favourably to this opportunity. It will create an environment where they can give consumers a kind of ‘supersize me’ option when buying Sony Ericsson phones, she adds.

The company recently underwent a major rebranding exercise to move closer to the Sony brand and to target the emotional aspect of consumers’ lives, more than simply appealing to their communication needs.

This, says Shear, will add to the company’s marketing strategy of ‘entertainment unlimited’, providing a complete mobile multimedia experience to users.

Apart from accessory sales, which Shear and Williamson concede were not a priority before, Shear says the past year’s sales of handsets locally were relatively stable for the company; SA remains one of the top performers in its region.