September 01, 2010

By By Michael Wei and Doug Young, Reuters

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson it expects half of all mobile phones sold in China to be smartphones by 2015, as prices for handsets fall amid growing popularity.

Sony Ericsson, a joint venture between Sony Corp and Sweden's Ericsson, also aimed to become the biggest Android phone brand globally, Sony Ericsson President Bert Nordberg told reporters in Beijing, declining to give a timetable.

"I think we have been decently successful in the short time, and we have a goal for the company to be the biggest supplier of Android phones," Nordberg said.

When asked about talk that Sony could buy out Ericsson from their joint venture, Nordberg said: "I expect no change for a while."

Sony Ericsson is the world's fifth-biggest handset maker, with an about 17% share of the global market for smartphones.

China is the world's largest mobile market, with roughly 800 million subscribers.

The company recently introduced its first phone using TD-SCDMA, a homegrown Chinese technology used in a 3G network operated by China Mobile Ltd, the world's biggest wireless carrier by users.

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