But closer home, the company's joint venture with Ericsson -- Sony Ericsson -- is leveraging the appeal of mobile gaming to propel its brand presence among youth.
Beginning Thursday, the company will launch what it claims is India's biggest mobile gaming tournament across 11 cities.
Over the next four weeks, users will get to play its recently-launched Xperia PLAY -- the world's first PlayStation-certified smartphone powered by Qualcomm's (Snapdragon) mobile processor, "bringing console quality gaming experience to end users".
Christened 'Be The Master of Games', the corporate gaming championship, according to Prasun Kumar, Marketing Head, Sony Ericsson India, hopes to reach out to more than 100 organisations.
The tournament will run across 44 Zapak Gameplexes in 11 cities. Indian gamers will come together to compete for the title of 'Best Gamer,' and will have the opportunity to use Sony Ericsson's Xperia PLAY smartphone. The Xperia model has over 100 game titles and "offers a broad range of games that appeal to all types of gamers".
While Sony Ericsson India has collaborated with India's largest gaming company Zapak to create experiences around the Xperia PLAY, it has also partnered with Qualcomm which powers the Xperia PLAY with the Snapdragon mobile processor which 'works to power the high-performance, console quality game experience on the Xperia PLAY with extended hours of game-play between charges', according to Sandeep Sibal, vice president of Business Development for Qualcomm India and South Asia.
Sony Ericsson India has also tied up with Tata Docomo which will provide the event participants free data service for three months.
"Gaming is incomplete without data play. Here's where Tata Docomo fits in. It will help them service high ARPU potential customers," explains Kumar.
Sony was earlier a marginal player in the global cellphone market with a share of less than 1 per cent in 2000.
It was also struggling in this area with losses but wanted to focus more on this area.
By August 2001, Sony and Ericsson had finalised the terms of the merger announced in April.
In India, though, Nokia is a leader with around 49 per cent share followed by Samsung (17 per cent), LG and Blackberry (5 per cent each), Micromax (4 per cent) and Apple and HTC (1 per cent each),
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