The brand new Sony Ericsson Satio phone, which is due to be officially launched in Australia tomorrow, has been withdrawn from sale by two of the UK’s biggest phone retailers after users complained about software problems.
The phone is already on sale at Optus.
The decision comes at a bad time for the European phone maker, who is struggling to compete up against tough competition from Apple, HTC and the Blackberry as well as mobile phones from LG and Samsung.
Mobile phone retailers Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U withdrew the Sony Ericsson Satio smartphone this week however both Companies have refused to explain why the decision was taken.
Both the BBC and the Times are leading with the story in the UK today with Sony Ericsson claiming that it was “giving this matter its utmost priority and working toward solving the problem”.
The Times said that consumers who purchased the Satio found that when they tried to access certain applications, the handset powered down. The issue is related to software on the phone and could not be resolved via a PC download patch.
The fix which Sony Ericsson, are saying will not be ready until Christmas is set to hurt sales with Sony Ericsson in Europe suspending a high-profile marketing campaign, which features people taking photos of each other on space hoppers using the phone’s 12 megapixel camera.
Both Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U are now offering consumer another phone including phones from other manufacturers than Sony Ericsson.
This year Sony Ericsson has struggled with the Company reporting a $323M million loss in the third quarter. Its market share has dwindled to around 5 per cent and has cut 2,000 jobs this year on top of 2,000 job losses last year.
The Sony Ericsson Satio has a 3.5-inch TFT touchscreen (16:9 ratio), comes with a 12.1-megapixel camera with Xenon flash, and runs on Symbian OS. It has a touch user interface, has five standby panels for easy program access, is YouTube compatible, and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built-in. Also included is GPS with A-GPS support, stereo FM radio, and microSD slots which supports up to 32GB.
We are still waiting on a comment from Sony Ericsson Australia re the Australian launch.
