Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson posted a second-quarter pretax loss in line with expectations on Thursday and repeated its forecast for the global handset market to contract at least 10 percent this year.

Sony Ericsson, owned by Swedish Ericsson and Japan's Sony Corp, reported a quarterly pretax loss of 283 million euros. The world's fifth-largest handset maker booked 1 million euros in restructuring charges in the quarter.

The mean forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts had been for a 284 million euro loss excluding restructuring charges of on average 62 million.

As expected, the second quarter was challenging and we still believe the remainder of the year will be difficult for Sony Ericsson, the firm said. Our performance is starting to improve due to our cost reduction activities.

A year ago the firm reported a profit before tax of 8 million euros.

The handset industry is expecting its worst decline on record in 2009 as the global recession hits demand.

Sony Ericsson is suffering from its strong focus on music and camera phones, which have been hurt the most in the economic downturn, and it has said it would focus more on top-end smartphones.

The company said it shipped 13.8 million units in the quarter -- a drop of 43 percent year-on-year and a sequential fall of 5 percent -- at an average selling price of 122 euros.

World no.1 handset maker Nokia Oyj is due to report second-quarter earnings later on Thursday.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Helena Soderpalm; Editing by David Holmes)

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