Sony Ericsson is about to launch its strongest onslaught on the market with a whopping 12.1MP camera phone in an apparent retaliation for the loss in its market share in the past few years because of intensifying competition.
Dubbed “Idou” when it was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress expo in Barcelona earlier this year, the Swedish-Japanese giant confirmed last month it would market the device globally as “Satio”.
Satio is believed to be the world’s first 12MP cellular handset, and according to dealers, would hit the UAE market in October. Sony Ericsson has, however, only confirmed “early Q4″ as its release date in the Emirates. Meanwhile, tech websites reported last week that rival Samsung has also announced a 12MP phone dubbed the Samsung M8910 Pixon12.
Weighing around 126gm, the quad band Satio has 3G capabilities and is a full-touchscreen smartphone with a 3.5-inch display and GPS. The first model in a new series of entertainment phones from Sony Ericsson this year, the handset is being marketed as a device capable of providing “unlimited entertainment” including a music player, e-mail and messaging, Bluetooth, PC syncing, USB mass storage and a personal organiser among others, powered by the Symbian operating system.
The handset’s camera is also equipped with powerful features, according to the manufacturers, including face detection, a staggering 16x digital zoom, picture blogging, red-eye reduction and touch capture. Measuring 112x55x13.3mm, it will come with a 128MB on board memory with a microSD memory card support. The Satio will be available in the UAE and other key markets in three colours: black, silver and bordeaux.
Dealers in the UAE would not, however, specify the expected price of the phone, saying it could range between Dh2,000 and Dh4,000. The Satio is one of three new high-end touchphones to be launched by Sony Ericsson in the next few months – the other two being the Aino, which lets users remotely access their PlayStations, and the Yari, which features gesture gaming.
“Imagine a phone with a 12.1MP camera. It is the world’s first and I am sure most people would covet this handset,” says Musbah Alhmoud, a self-confessed Sony Ericsson loyalist.
“But it is not just the camera. The phone is equipped with massive entertainment capabilities and other features, including for business.”
Mobile phone dealers in the capital say the Satio would give a strong push to Sony Ericsson’s campaign to defend its market share in the UAE and other countries, noting that the company has stepped up its promotion drive in the past two years with a barrage of sophisticated handsets and increased promotional campaigns and celebrity endorsements.
“Sony Ericsson spends more than all other mobile phone makers on promotion campaigns in the Middle East,” says Abdul Monem Al Hariri, sales manager at Golden Crown, one of the largest mobile phone dealers in the capital.
“I think the company might be feeling the pinch of growing competition here and worldwide and wants to defend its share.
I feel that what they are spending is paying off as the company is now trailing the market leader Nokia of Finland.
“Of every 10 mobiles, we sell six Nokias and three Sony Ericssons,” he adds.
Sony Ericsson was among the top three mobile phone makers a few years ago and its market share had steadily grown before it began to slip with the entry of many new manufacturers, mostly from China and the development of advanced handsets by other key mobile phone makers, mainly Nokia and Samsung.
In the first quarter of 2009, Sony Ericsson sold around 14.4 million mobile handsets compared with nearly 22 million phones in the same period last year. The decline depressed its market share to 5.4 from 7.5 per cent, according to figures by tech researcher Gartner.
In contrast, Samsung’s sales increased to 51.3 million handsets from 42.3 million in the same period, boosting its market share to 19.1 from 14.4 per cent and allowing it to maintain its position as the second largest after Nokia.
Despite a sharp fall in Nokia’s sales to 97.3 million handsets from 115.1 million, the Finnish giant retained its top position in the list of mobile phone makers. But its market share slipped to 36.2 from 39.1 per cent.
LG Electronic, the second biggest mobile phone maker in South Korea, is the third largest mobile phone manufacturer in the first quarter of 2009 with a market share of 9.9 per cent. Motorola came fourth with a share of 6.2 per cent.
