Sony Ericsson is expanding its development activities in the US and China in order to take a bigger part of the growing handset markets there, CEO Bert Nordberg said in an interview with Bloomberg. The US mobile industry has shifted to the West Coast, and the company more than tripled its development staff in California last year to 300, the CEO said. In Beijing, the number jumped 60 percent to 1,600. Sony Ericsson is targeting growth particularly in the Android market, where it aims to take its global share to 25 percent from 14 percent currently. Nordberg did not specify a timeframe for reaching the goal. After the four Android Xperia phones announced already this year, Sony Ericsson will release at least four more phones in 2011, Nordberg said. As new devices are introduced, the company will increasingly sell them in the US first, as the country represents about 45 percent of the Android market currently, he added. The Xperia Play, its touchscreen smartphone with slide-out Sony Playstation console controls, will go on sale in the US in April with Verizon and should come to China about three months later, Nordberg said. China is on track to become the company's biggest market for mobile phones around 2013-14, Nordberg said in a separate interview with the Wall Street Journal. Sony Ericsson ranked fifth in smartphone sales in China with a 7.2 percent share in the fourth quarter, according to Analysys. Nordberg said the company is open to partnerships in the gaming industry in China, to support the launch of phones such as the Xperia Play.
