Sony Ericsson reports €140m pretax profit

Swedish-Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson fell short of consensus with its fourth-quarter pretax profit today but beat…

Swedish-Japanese mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson fell short of consensus with its fourth-quarter pretax profit today but beat sales forecasts saying sales of its latest 3G phone were driving growth.

The world's sixth biggest mobile phone maker reported a pre-tax profit of €140 million against €165 million expected by analysts.

But sales were €2 billion against expectations of €1.93 billion.

Sony Ericsson, created in 2001 from handset units of mobile network maker Ericsson and consumer electronics giant Sony, had sales of €1.4 billion and a pretax profit of €46 million in the last quarter of 2003.