Hirai refuses to rule out Sony Ericsson sale

Hirai refuses to rule out Sony Ericsson sale
Sony Ericsson - will it ever be just Sony?

The speculation over whether Sony Ericsson will be bought entirely by parent company Sony has come to the fore once more at the AsiaD conference.

Kazuo Hirai, Sony's executive deputy president, stated that he was keen for the two brands to work more closely together to help further the Japanese firm's presence in the smartphone world.

"After April, when the latest management change happened at Sony and I was put in charge of all the consumer products, [one of the issues was] Sony Ericsson has a different reporting line," said Hirai.

"One of the things I've done is to say whether this is a joint venture or not, the fact of the matter is the Sony Ericsson component is integral to Sony's strategy going forward, and therefore it doesn't matter if it's a joint venture or not, we have to make sure we're working in lockstep."

Mutual collaborative joint togetherness

"We have to understand what Sony Ericsson is doing and they have to understand what Sony is trying to do, from a marketing or other collaborative point of view. We have to make sure that happens, creating a seamless offering to our customers, and that's something we've started working on with things like the Xperia Play," he continued.

The integration of Sony brands Bravia, Exmor R and PlayStation components into the latest range of Xperia phones is testament to this change, showing that the two companies are working closer together.

While Hirai didn't confirm the joint venture will be bought out, the number of rumours around the issue, plus Sony's in-house tablet range, mean it seems ever more likely we'll see Sony striking out as a solo mobile phone brand in the future.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.