Sony Ericsson, Motorola try to recapture old glory

As growth returns to the global economy, so too are global brands flocking back to India. Even as reports of Motorola's big splash relaunch does the rounds, Sony Ericsson, the former number two, launched another crop of phones in India after seven months of silence.

The firm, which has seen its marketshare collapse to 3-4%, has also brought the Indian operations under its Asia Pacific unit as it gears up to gain back some of its lost market share.

"We have been hit, both in India and abroad, by the global downturn, but we are now looking forward," said Hirokazu Ishizuka, vice president and head of Asia Pacific.

The company, which is estimated to have fallen to number six as it faced an onslaught of Indian and Korean brands, unveiled five new models, including one of the few phones with a built in high-definition video recorder. The new models include both Android and Symbian phones.

The company it will continue to focus on the consumer segment instead of enterprise and the focus was also reflected in the new launch. In line with its global strategy, it will more or less ignore the segment of phones costing Rs 3000 or less.

The five phones are expected to be priced between Rs 15,000 to Rs 35,000, and the company is also likely to introduce another three models, this time in the medium range.

Both Sony Ericsson and Motorola were caught up in the economic downturn as the former derived a large part of its business from Europe and the latter, from the US. With the economies coming back on the growth path, both are again beginning to get aggressive in their plans.

Motorola, for example, has seen spectacular success after it released its first post-recession model, the Droid, based on the Android operating system. After it was introduced in the US late last year, it overtook even the Apple iPhone in initial sales, clocking 1.05 million units in the first 74 days compared to iPhone's 1 million. Motorola is expected to launch models from its Droid family in India in the coming days, having already launched them in Hong Kong.