It was a high point for the upmarket foodstores – and surely a low one for Mr King. After all, Waitrose was once just a small part of the John Lewis Partnership and trailed Sainsbury’s as the middle class’s favourite grocer.
Now, however, and as Waitrose’s market share continues to grow, its annual sales have beaten those of the John Lewis stores. One can only wonder what Justin King, chief executive of the struggling J Sainsbury, must be thinking right now. However, the company will face stiff competition when it moves into music. Motorola has a venture with Apple and Nokia is working with Microsoft.”But for now at least Sir Howard can tick Sony Ericsson as a success.Clayton Hirst.

Critically, it will carry the Walkman branding, which dates back to 1979 when Sony’s ground- breaking personal cassette player was launched.Ben Wood, an analyst at technology research firm Garter, says: “It has taken a long time, but Sony Ericsson is now delivering on its promises. Instead, our aim is to make fun and attractive phones.”Sony Ericsson has made inroads in the camera phone market. The next step will come this summer when it launches the W800 (pictured), a phone that lets users store and play up to 150 MP3 music tracks. In the final quarter of 2004, Sony Ericsson shifted 12.6 million phones ,making it the world’s number six handset maker. It has now abandoned its aim of overtaking Nokia (which sold 66.1 million in the same quarter) and instead is focusing on making high-quality phones that sell at a price to match.Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson, says: “If we were to compete with the really big players then we would have to go into volume manufacturing in a way that is not feasible We would lose a huge amount of money.

But merging the cultures and management of the Swedish and Japanese groups proved harder than anyone had thought, and for the first couple of years the handsets that Sony Ericsson produced were, at best, ordinary. The turning point came with the launch of the T610 model – the first phone to be designed from scratch by the joint venture. Launched in April 2001, the company boasted that it would overtake Nokia as the world’s number one handset maker by 2006. The venture has finally established itself as a desirable brand in the fickle mobile market.It hasn’t been an easy journey. But make sure you don’t make the same mistake twice.”GOOD CALL: SWEDISH CONNECTION BRIGHTENS THE OUTLOOKWhen Sir Howard Stringer starts to examine in detail all the problems at Sony, he will at least take comfort from one corner of the electronics giant’s empire.After a troubled start, Sony’s joint venture with the Swedish telecoms company Ericsson is finally paying handsome dividends.Last year Sony Ericsson broke into profit, announcing a net income of €316m (£221m) on sales of £6.5bn.