Mobile manufacturer Sony Ericsson on Thursday said its Q2 earnings almost doubled, largely due to strong sales of its Walkman music phones.

Spurred on by the growth, the handset maker raised its global market forecast for 2006.

The company said its net profit rose to Eur143m (£98.79m) in the three months ending June 30, up from Eur75m in the same period twelve months earlier. Quarterly sales grew 41 per cent to Eur2.27bn from Eur1.61bn a year earlier.

The world’s No. 5 handset maker, a joint venture between Japan’s Sony and Sweden’s LM Ericsson, said it shipped 33 per cent more handsets during the quarter than it did last year – 15.7 million compared with 11.8 million in the same period in 2005.

Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson, said: “The second quarter has seen Sony Ericsson both announce and start to ship a wide variety of products confirming the company’s ability to compete, capture market share and profitably grow the business.”

The company said growth in the global handset market continued to outpace expectations and predicted that global handset sales will reach more than 950 million units, up from the previous estimate of above 900 million units.