Ericsson's stock jumps after Sony mobile phone story
- Published
Sony may merge its phone joint venture with its other mobile gaming business
Shares in the Swedish telecoms firm Ericsson have risen on a report that Sony may soon buy it out of their mobile phone handsets joint venture.
Sony wants to integrate the division with its tablet computer and hand-held games machine businesses.
The report said the Japanese firm may pay its partner up to 1.25bn euros ($1.7bn, 拢1.1bn) for its 50% stake.
Ericsson's shares climbed close to 8% in US trading after the news broke.
'Struggling'
Despite Sony's reputation as a technology innovator, the joint venture has struggled to maintain market share.
Sony Ericsson accounted for 1.7% of all global mobile phone sales between April and June, according to a recent report by technology research firm Gartner.
That compared to a 3% share the previous year.
"The business has been struggling," said Mark McKechnie, a technology analyst at ThinkEquity.
"Sony's decision to use its brand with Ericsson's technology was a good idea, but it didn't work out. Now it wants more control to better compete against Apple and other [Google] Android devices."
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