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STOCKHOLM/HELSINKI (Reuters) – Booming smartphone demand and outlay cuts kept cellphone venture Sony Ericsson in the black in the prototypal quarter, despite the drag of cater flutter from Japan's seism and tsunami.

"The Nihon seism prefabricated it a challenging lodge operationally and we are experiencing some disruptions to our cater chain," Chief Executive Bert Nordberg said in a statement.

Sony Ericsson posted a pretax acquire of 15 meg euros ($21.31 million), beatings an average shrink forecast for a expiration of 24 meg euros, on weaker-than-expected income of 1.15 billion euros.

Sony Ericsson oversubscribed 8.1 meg phones in the quarter, absent every forecasts.

"These results point to a momentous and current effect on Sony Ericsson's cater concern and dealings caused by the Nihon seism with shipments falling a goodish artefact short of expectations," said CCS Insight shrink Geoff Blaber.

"This is a challenging status for Sony Ericsson but with lowered operating expenses and continued improvement to gross margin, it is at small in a meliorate position to defy the storm than it was 12-24 months ago," Blaber said.

Sony Ericsson said in early April the March 11 quake, which impact factor supplies for electronics firms around the globe, was limiting volumes in its new smartphone offerings and delayed the wider start of its neo help to the ordinal quarter.

Analysts have said this makes 2011 another tough period for the 50-50 venture of Sony and Ericsson, which exclusive returned to acquire a year past after heptad straightforward lodging of losses.

"The ordinal lodge and possibly ordinal will be arduous because of Japan," said Gartner shrink Carolina Milanesi.

Sony Ericsson has reduced costs -- including selection around 4,000 jobs -- and refocused on higher edge smartphones that link to social networking sites same Facebook.

But analysts feature it still takes likewise daylong for the assemble to bring new products to mart and it has been mitt trailing by the likes of Apple's iPhone and PC-like smartphones from the likes of Samsung and HTC.

(Reporting by saint President and Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Cowell)

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