katsumi ihara president of sony ericsson has the kind of problem most bosses can only dream of demand for the companys mobile phones is so great that he could sell many more than he can supplyat sony ericssons headquarters in hammersmith west london ihara displays a flash of irritation that the firm didnt grab a bigger slice of the booming christmas mobile marketnonetheless results released on monday will show another profitable quarter completing a year of turnaround at the japaneseswedish jvonly last june such a revival seemed unlikely the firm which has made a loss since its formation in october 2001 withdrew from an important part of the us market with the loss of 500 jobs ericsson the more troubled of the two struggling parents was urged to abandon the handset businessbut beneath the gloomy headlines sony ericssons recovery was already under way sales were growing rapidly thanks to hip new phones most notably the t610 with its sleek styling and integrated camera by endseptember companys marketshare in western europe had bounced back to 66 per cent according to strategy analytics up from only 4 per cent a year earlier the strength of the recovery has surprised analysts including ben wood at gartner who thought sony ericsson would struggle to make it into 2004 another is richard windsor at nomura international who said i have to admit that recent progress has been much better than i expected i thought their japanese handsets looked a little boxy and would not sell in europe but the t610 has sold very wellthe t610 has even made converts of confirmed nokia fans such as nick wood md of the link the dixonsowned mobile chain they have surprised everybody with the t610 he said it is the first phone that i have picked up which is as intuitive as a nokia the features are great the styling is great its the first product they have led the market withihara also dates the firms turnaround from the introduction of the t610 last spring he said the t610 is the first product that we have developed from scratch i was personally very much involved in the development due to the beauty of the design and the very good package of features this has been well received worldwidehe said the t610 and the companys japanese hit the so505i carry the sony hallmark of great industrial design the dna of sony ericsson is very productfocused a product with the sony ericsson brand should have a wow factor it has to be something very cool stylish very innovativethis was the logic behind the original merger to combine sonys design skills and consumer marketing knowhow with ericssons greater expertise in telecom and its strong relationships with the mobilenetwork operatorsthe winning equation of sony ericsson is a very simple one said ihara the strengths of the two parent companies are very complementary but to succeed in this it needs more than one or two hot phones the company has filled out