Sony unveils big Europe plans
Tokyo, October 12, 2013
Kazuo Hirai's plan to restore Sony Corporation to lasting profitability rests in large part on its smartphones leapfrogging rivals to become the world's third-biggest seller after the Apple iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy series.
But that goal remains some way off. Sony's chief executive, installed last year with a brief to turn the serial loss maker around, yesterday said that for now, Sony has no big plans for the world's two largest smartphone markets, China and the US.
Instead, Hirai said Sony, which aims to rise to third position from its current ranking of seventh, will focus on Europe and its home market in Japan, which collectively account for 60 per cent of its smartphone sales.
"Those two are the most important areas for us and we'll put substantial resources there. But not yet for the US and China," Hirai said.
"It's not realistic to try to do everything at once. In the US we'll start gradually."
In the US, only the fourth-largest carrier T-Mobile US offers Sony smartphones. Meanwhile, Sony has been unable to compete in China with homegrown brands from ZTE to CoolPad despite contracts with the three largest carriers.
Sony is not among the top five smartphone brands in either of those markets, according to research firm IDC. Its global share of the smartphone market was a modest 2.2pc in the second quarter of this year, according to research firm Gartner, trailing the likes of LG Electronics and Lenovo Group as well as Apple and Samsung Electronics.
Hirai has positioned mobile devices as one of the three pillars for a turnaround of the company's electronics unit, which relied on help from a weak yen to post a profit in the latest quarter - its first quarterly profit in two years.
The other two key divisions are games, where the PlayStation 4 console due for launch next month has drawn strong pre-orders, and digital imaging, where Sony dominates the production of image sensors for smartphone cameras.
Against that background, smartphones could end up the weakest link in the strategy.
"Their devices are OK but frankly not compelling. They're fine, but they're not exceptional," said independent mobile and telecommunications analyst Benedict Evans.
"But the deeper problem is that when you're selling devices made on someone else's platform it's extremely difficult to differentiate."
Even in its home market, where Sony ranked No 2 in the latest quarter behind Apple, the outlook has become tougher. Last month Japan's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo, which in its summer campaign favoured Sony's Xperia over other domestic brands, struck a deal with Apple to carry the latest iPhone.
Still, Hirai said Xperia's established reputation in Japan should help to see off the threat from Apple. "We have strong brand recognition here for Xperia's hardware and services," Hirai said.
The company has set a target of selling 42 million smartphones worldwide in the financial year to next March, an increase of 27 per cent from a year ago.-Reuters
