Sony Ericsson results show 21% decrease in sales

No surprises as sales and units head south

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16 January 2009 17:27 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Sony Ericsson has, like everyone else, just posted disappointing Q4 results suggesting no one is exempt from the economic downturn.

According to the Swedish company, while it still managed to shift 24.2 million units that wasn't enough to stop a sequential decrease of 6% and a year-on-year decrease of 21%.

Thanks to some currency fluctuations sales were actually up 4%, however still saw a decrease of 23% compared to Q4 2007.

Sony Ericsson, not surprisingly blames the "the global economic slowdown that resulted in contracting consumer demand and decreased availability of credit," it said in a statement.

“In economic terms, 2008 has been a tumultuous year with world markets experiencing a serious downturn. The mobile phone market has been greatly affected by this and as expected, the fourth quarter continued to be very challenging for Sony Ericsson", said Dick Komiyama, president, Sony Ericsson.

There was some good news for Sony Ericsson however, according to the company the "successful roll out of the Xperia X1 and Cyber-shot C905 positively impacted the business".