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Egham, UK — Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users in the third quarter of 2007 reached 289 million units, a 15 per cent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. The top five vendors increased their market shares and accounted for 81.6 per cent of the global market share.

“Even though relatively few models were introduced this quarter, overall sales exceeded expectations. Mobile phone sales were mainly driven by strong performances in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices research at Gartner, based in Egham, UK. “The third quarter also saw Samsung gain the No. 2 position taking advantage of Motorola’s continued weak performance.”

Nokia’s mobile phone sales to end users totaled 110.2 million units reaching a market share of 38.1 per cent in the third quarter of 2007. This quarter, Nokia not only exhibited the highest year-on-year market share increase, but also raised operating margins thanks to effective cost management and global distribution strategy.

Samsung’s sales to end users reached 41.8 million units and saw the vendor gain the No. 2 position as it better managed its channel inventory. Sales of its Ultra Edition II series continued to gain momentum in key markets such as Western Europe, where Samsung reached 21 per cent market share, its strongest performance in the region.

Motorola’s sales into the channel remained weak and, with limited surplus stock, sales to end users were not enough to maintain its No. 2 position. Motorola’s market share dropped 7.6 percentage points from the third quarter of 2006, relegating the vendor to the No. 3 position.

Sony Ericsson’s positive performance continued in the third quarter of 2007 as sales reached 25.4 million units. As Sony Ericsson built up sales volume and presence in some regions, such as Latin America, it also saw a slight increase in inventory among distributors.

LG sold 20.5 million units in the third quarter of 2007 and reached a market share of 7.1 per cent. LG faced stronger competition in markets such as India, where the code division multiple access (CDMA) market has become challenging as operators closed deals with new entrants such as ZTE. More at Gartner.

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BASKING RIDGE, NJ, Nov 29, ‘07 /PRNewswire/ — Verizon today announced plans to develop and deploy its fourth generation mobile broadband network using LTE — Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization.

The selection of LTE provides Verizon and Vodafone — joint owners of U.S.-based Verizon Wireless - - with a unique opportunity to adopt a common access platform with true global scale and compatibility with existing technologies of both companies.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia- Siemens, and Nortel. These suppliers, along with others in the world community, have contributed significantly towards development of the standards in 3GPP.

Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

“We fully support Verizon’s decision to select LTE as their next generation wireless broadband solution,” said Steve Pusey, Vodafone’s global chief technology officer. “LTE will build on the capabilities of Vodafone’s 3G broadband High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network technology, which is available across the entire Vodafone 3G footprint.”

“Today’s 4G announcement, coupled with our Open Development initiative announced earlier this week present a major growth opportunity for Verizon Wireless,” said Doreen Toben, chief financial officer of Verizon. “Fourth generation’s higher data speeds wi usher in a new era of wireless applications and appliances, all of which can benefit from connecting to the nation’s premier wireless network.”

More at PRNewsWire.

London, UK – 6th November 2007 – The W960 Walkman phone will start to ship from November 2007, Sony Ericsson announced today. The W960, a potent combination of slim UMTS and Wi-Fi enabled phone with high performance media player, will be available in selected markets across the globe in time for the Christmas season.

The W960 was unveiled in June 2007 and marks a next generation of Walkman phones. With room for up to 8,000 songs and finger-touch navigation around playlists on the large touch screen, the days of taking an MP3 player and a phone with you are definitely over. The 2.6” display also serves as an excellent viewfinder for a 3.2 megapixel camera and as a widescreen for watching video in TV quality.

“The W960 has been generating a lot of consumer excitement since the day it was announced,” says Ben Padley, Head of Music Product Group at Sony Ericsson. “As the next instalment in our hugely popular Walkman phone series, we are confident that this music mix of 3G phone, Walkman player and quality camera will prove to be a hit, and a great complement to the rest of the range.”

Music Desk Stand MDS-65 makes the perfect partner for a hi-fi duet
Sony Ericsson’s Music Desk Stand MDS-65 will also hit stores at around the same time. The perfect musical complement to the W960 and many other Sony Ericsson phones, the MDS-65 lets you charge the phone while experiencing high-fidelity sound on its four full-range neodymium-magnet speakers. And when you’re on the move, the MDS-65 runs on batteries so you can use it anywhere you like – from barbecue to beach. With its sleek, futuristic silver finish, it can’t help but draw admiring glances.

The Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman phone is UMTS 2100-GSM/GPRS 900/1800/1900 and will be available in Vinyl Black from November 2007. The Music Desk Stand MDS-65 will also be available from November 2007.

No indication of Global / European launch/price!

London, UK and Raleigh, NC — Nov 06, ‘07 — Sony Ericsson today announced the launch of the K660, an HSDPA (‘mobile broadband’) enabled phone, W380 Walkman phone, MD300 USB Mobile Broadband Modem and HBH-PV703 Bluetooth Headset. All four products will be available in Q1 of 2008.

K660:
- HSDPA/UMTS: 2100 MHz
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- 2″ 240×320 QVGA Display
- 2 MP camera
- Bluetooth Stereo (A2DP)
- Access NetFront Browser, RSS Feeds
- FM Radio
- GSM: Talk time: Up to 9 hrs, Standby Up to 330 hrs
- UMTS Talk time: Up to 4.5 hrs, Standby Up to 330 hrs
- 104×47x14.7 mm, 3.4 oz
W380a:
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/1800/1900
- 1.9″ 176×220 TFT LCT
- Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)
- Audio Formats: MP3/AAC/AAC+
- FM Radio
- 1.3 MP Camera
- RSS Feeds, WAP 2.0 XHTML
- 512MB M2 Memory Stick
- Talk time: up to 7 Hrs, Syandby 300 Hrs
- 92×49x16 mm, 100 g
MD300:
- HSDPA/UMTS: Triple band 850/1900/ 2100 MHz
- HSDPA up to 3.6 Mbps
- EDGE/GPRS: Quad band 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
- USB 2.0 Mobile Broadband Modem
- Compact size: 70×32.5×15 mm
- Integrated antenna design
- Supported OS: MS Windows 2000, XP, Vista, MAC-OS X
HBH-PV703:
- Bluetooth 2.0
- 61×18 mm, 14 g
- Talk time: Up to 10 Hrs, Standby: Up to 350 Hrs

More at SonyEricsson here, here and here!

Apparently it seems like, the search giant Google is closer to make official announcement about its much hyped “Google phone“.

Nov 02, ‘07 — Eric Zeman of InformationWeek is reporting on Google to unveil its plans for “Google Mobile Apps” on Monday, citing “sources”.

In his words:

“According to The Wall Street Journal, Monday will likely be the day we learn the fate of the wireless industry. Whether Google will move along an evolutionary or revolutionary path is completely unknown, but the result will probably shake up the industry either way.

At least two carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile, are on board with whatever Google is up to. Along with the carriers, handset vendors are working behind the scenes, too.

The Journal’s Amol Sharma writes:

“While Sprint appears to be agreeing to work with Google to put the Web giant’s new Linux-based open operating system into phones, T-Mobile will probably go even further: the company has worked with Google for months on plans to build Google-powered phones with a variety of Google software and applications. As far as handset partners for Google, Taiwan’s HTC is a likely bet, our sources say. Samsung, LG, and SonyEricsson are also possible, but we’ll wait and see the full roster. Equally interesting will be who isn’t on the list.”"

More at InformationWeek.

London and SCHAUMBURG, IL – October 15, 2007 – Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced a definitive agreement under which Motorola will acquire a 50% interest in UI Holdings BV, the parent company of UIQ Technology AB, which is currently wholly owned by Sony Ericsson. Under the agreement, Motorola and Sony Ericsson will work together and jointly invest in the development of the UIQ open user interface platform. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. As previously announced, Sony Ericsson acquired UIQ Technology from Symbian Ltd in February 2007.

UIQ Technology licenses the UIQ open user interface and development platform to mobile phone vendors around the world. Motorola and Sony Ericsson are committed to further advancing UIQ as a strong, independent cross-vendor user interface for smartphones and media-centric phones. Today’s announcement should be seen as an invitation to other mobile device vendors to participate in the UIQ community, either as shareholders or licensees.

Motorola and Sony Ericsson also plan to significantly increase their cooperation and support for the UIQ developer program. More details will be unveiled to developers at a special event today following a media and analyst briefing.

Both companies have agreed that UIQ will be vendor and chipset independent. In addition, UIQ will be licensed on equal terms to all mobile device vendors in the industry. Sony Ericsson and Motorola are committed to expanding the shareholder base of UI Holdings to include other handset vendors.

Sony Ericsson and Motorola each have been UIQ licensees for many years and have launched several successful Symbian/UIQ based products including, the Sony Ericsson P1 smartphone, the new W960 Walkman® phone and the Motorola MOTO Z8. UIQ, offered the industry’s first touch-screen interface back in 2002, and now supports both QWERTY and classic numerical keyboard configurations as well as finger touch data input. UIQ’s single code base greatly simplifies customization for handset vendors, operators and third-party developers.

More at Sony Ericsson Press Release

With Christmas sales fast approaching, Sony Ericsson today announces that its latest Walkman and Cyber-shot phones, the W910 and the K850, will be available in stores across selected markets from this month.

The W910 and the K850 continue to deliver the best mobile music and camera phone experiences. Both new phones boast Turbo-3G speeds (HSDPA) for fast download of music and other content and come packed with unique features.

The W910 is designed for entertainment; whether music(Offers Stereo Bluetooth), 3D games, video, or high-speed Web access and comes with 1GB Memory Stick Micro out of the box.

The K850 Cyber-shot phone is equipped with a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus, Xenon flash and Video Light that together help produce true digital camera results.

The Sony Ericsson W910 will be available in either Hearty Red or Noble Black. The K850 has a colour choice of either Velvet Blue or Luminous Green. Both will be available in-store across selected markets from October 2007

More at Sony Ericsson…

Set music free with a Bluetooth speaker that looks as good as it sounds. The new Portable Bluetooth Speaker MBS-100, announced today by Sony Ericsson, is the perfect accessory for your Walkman phone or most other Bluetooth enabled music phones. For anyone wanting to share their music, whether at home or in the office, but avoid a series of wires and complicated set-up, the Portable Bluetooth  Speaker MBS-100 looks and sounds the part.

Your favourite music deserves crystal clear powerful sound, and the MBS-100 provides just that using the latest A2DP streaming technology to deliver the very best in sound quality. MBS-100 will be available from Q4 2007 in selected markets.

More at Sony Ericsson…