Sony Ericsson market shift may hit Taiwan ODM partners, says paper

Sony Ericsson's plan to shift its focus on higher margin products rather than less profitable devices could deal a serious blow to its two Taiwan-based ODM handset partners – Arima Communications and Chi Mei Communication Systems (CMCS), according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

The report came after Sony Ericsson CEO Hideki Komiyama said during a recent interview with Reuters that the company will shift its focus towards high-end products and reduce the models which generate lower margins so as to weather the economic storm.

As a matter of fact, Sony Ericsson has not released any orders for new low-cost models to its main ODM partners since the second half of 2008 when the company began to draw the handset raodmap for 2009, the paper quoted sources at Taiwan's handset industry as indicating. Komiyama's remarks could mean that Sony Ericsson would further reduce the size of its low-cost ODM handset orders, the paper added.