Also I find it snappier than V3.1.5.

I don’t know if other Xperia devices got the update yet, but if not, they should get it soon.

My Xperia Arc just got the update to the latest Android Market.
The Market did update automatically, it just needed longer to start, because of that I opened the new text message that I had and afterwards the new market was there.

It works quite fast and fluent on the Arc.
But the old market was faster and I have to say that I liked the old market more. But maybe that will change after I used the new marekt for some time.

I don’t know if the other Xperias got the update, too, but if not they should receive the update soon, too.

Source: ebay

With a range of new handsets, chief amongst them the Xperia play and the Xperia arc, and a massive cost cutting campaign the obvious question would be why the loss? Well Sony Ericsson’s president. Bert Nordberg, is putting the blame on the Japanese earthquake, saying that it disrupted Sony Ericsson’s supply chain. It’s a fair comment, after all the earthquake and tsunami did have a huge impact upon the electronics industry and apparently, in Sony Ericsson’s case, resulted in the loss of 1.5 million handsets.

According to engadget it started shipping today.

Source: engadget and sony.com

For now the app is only available for the X10 with Android 2.1.

Source: Android Market

The jist of the speculation centres around an alleged conversation between Sony Ericsson and two Chinese companies back in March where Sony Ericsson is said to have “casually and completely “randomly” asked not whether they are interested to buy the rights to the brand, take all the commitments for the maintenance of offices around the world and content staff.” One of the companies involved is said to have been Foxconn, an electronics company that many of you will probably know better as one of Apple’s suppliers for the iPhone.

You can read Eldar’s full blog entry here.

Asymco have produced a series of graphs that attempts to answer that question. The first graph we see shows how the various manufacturers have performed over the past three years with respect to market and profit share. If the arrow is going up then profit share is going up, going down and profit share is going down. If the arrow is heading right then marketshare is increasing, heading left and it’s decreasing.

You will notice that Sony Ericsson’s arrow points in all the wrong directions. Profit share is down and so is marketshare. They’re the mirror image of RIM, which has steadily increased both. Notice also that Nokia and Apple are mirroring each other. Whilst neither company’s marketshare has risen or fallen dramatically their profit share has undergone some very dramatic changes.

In the two graphs below we can compare how each of the companies has changed over the last three years.

Again it is not good news for Sony Ericsson. In 2007 they had the third highest profit share and their marketshare was in the top four. Indeed they were only behind the real heavy hitters of Nokia, Samsung and Motorola (yes Motorola was a heavy hitter). That’s a pretty good position for a relatively small manufacturer.

Let’s fast forward to 2010 and Sony Ericsson are a shadow of their former selves. Profit share has gone into free fall and instead of being one of the highest is now one of the lowest. Unlike Nokia, which has managed to stem its marketshare decline even as profit share declines, Sony Ericsson has also seen its marketshare crumble away.

In 2007 Sony Ericsson was positioned to make a transition out of the ‘Marginal’ group, but just three short years later that seems like a pipe dream. Before we get too gloomy though Sony Ericsson has been taking some important steps to get itself back on track. For one thing they have made some painful cost saving moves not to mention embracing Android (even if they do need to move faster) and of course they have wisely ditched the shackle that is Symbian (Angus: they got rid of UIQ too!). Hopefully we see that little Sony Ericsson turning around and pointing up!

[via Asymco]

It’s a hard question to answer for the reason I gave above, simply put few people have access to that information. The best we can do for the time being is to rely on anecdotal evidence and conjecture, neither of which are particularly useful here. Sure plenty of the people I know personally have bought an X10 or have been talking about it, but how representative is that? Looking at Google Trends we see a huge spike in interest in the X10 recently, but again that isn’t useful in answering the question beyond saying that the handset is generating some interest. That really only leaves us with one option, analyse the Japanese results and try to apply them to the rest of the world. However, we again run into a problem because of the nature of the Japanese market. Anyone familiar with the Japanese mobile market will know that it isn’t called the Galapagos of the mobile world for nothing. It’s a law unto itself and what applies in Japan more often than not doesn’t apply in the rest of the world. Given that the Japanese market is dominated by handsets made specifically for the networks there, and which sport their own heavily customised OS, and which often sport features uncommon, or non-existent, in the rest of the world is it fair to try and apply these results to other markets? I think not.

Having said all that it is worth reflecting on these results a little. If DoCoMo ordered 50,000 units that tells us that they expect to be able to sell at the very least the majority of those units. If they had forecast that demand would be around the 10,000 mark I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest that they would have placed an order more in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 units. It is also worth mentioning that we don’t know what time scale DoCoMo expects to sell those 50,000 units in. A week? A month? A year? We have to accept that 9,000 units is low, but we just don’t have enough information yet to properly assess the matter. I’m making a few enquiries myself so watch this space.

Sony Ericsson’s President, Bert Nordberg, talked about a refreshed portfolio as being key to the company turning itself around and in particular mentioned the X10, which many are viewing as the company’s best chance to catch up with rivals and inject fresh interest in the brand. Sales have suffered recently with the last quarter of 2009 seeing a 40% decrease year on year. Sony Ericsson put the blame for this on the shrinking global handset market, which saw an 8% decrease last year. However, they also pointed to “… a faster than anticipated shift to touch screen phones in the mid-priced sector of the market”. This may come as something of a surprise to customers and industry watchers given the popularity that mid-range touchscreen handsets like LG’s Cookie and Samsung’s Tocco Lite have enjoyed for more than a year now.

Throughout 2009 there had been speculation that parent company Ericsson was thinking of abandoning the joint venture with Sony, but both Ericsson and Sony contributed funding to the tune of 350 million euros to the venture, 50% of that figure coming from each parent. So far Sony Ericsson has used 255 million euros of that, but retain a 200 million euro fund for use over the next two years. Mr Nordberg pointed out that the restructuring costs and spending cuts were taking effect with Sony Ericsson’s debt being reduced.

Read the full statement here.