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Sony Ericsson has announced two NFC-enabled Android smartphones and NFC tags for its Xperia series, touting NFC as enabling consumers to share content, as well as “an increasing number of NFC applications.”

Of the four phones the phone maker, which will be wholly owned by Japan’s Sony Corp., announced this week for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it is promoting NFC only in its Xperia S. Sony plans to release the phone globally during the first quarter. Another new Xperia model, the ion, to be sold exclusively by AT&T in the United States, is also expected to support NFC.

While Sony notes the Xperia S supports a “growing range of NFC applications and service,” it did not mention that the phone could support payment or mobile wallets. Since the Xperia S runs Android version 2.3, known as Gingerbread, it probably carries an NFC chip from NXP Semiconductors, which would likely support the single-wire protocol. This would enable payment and other secure applications on SIM cards. The phone also might pack an embedded secure chip.

But Sony appears to be focusing its promotion of the phone’s NFC features on tag reading and how it works with the company’s Xperia SmartTags, also announced this week. The programmable round tokens will be included in the box with the phones.

The company said users would be able to tap their Xperia S or other NFC smartphones on the NFC tags to launch services.

“Touch Xperia SmartTags with your NFC phone to turn on WiFi, start Google navigation or launch your news and weather app,” said the phone maker. The introduction of the branded tags indicates the phone maker plans more NFC-enabled Xperia phones.

Sony said the Xperia S will be upgradable to Android 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, in the second quarter. This would enable the phone to use Android Beam, an enhanced NFC peer-to-peer feature that Android owner Google introduced last fall.

While not promoting NFC for the Xperia ion, Sony said the phone would support the NFC tags. The 4G LTE phone is due to be released by sale by AT&T in the second quarter.