Sony is reportedly close to buying out the stake owned by partner Ericsson in their joint venture Sony Ericsson.

Sony Ericsson is primarily involved in manufacturing mobile devices. They are one of the few companies that exclusively launch Google Android based Smartphones in the market.

The company has indicated in the past that they want to stop selling feature phones in the market and exclusively cater to the high end smartphone market (like Apple).

The two companies have declined to comment on these reports.

Sony is likely to benefit from owning the company to themselves. They would be able to use their own branding on all future products and new products could be launched and marketed more properly.