How Much Longer Can Sony Survive On Playstation Alone?

[czecherychestnut]

NiKKoM said:

leo-j said:
Sony's xperia brand is growing.. Selling more and more each year.. They want to get to #3 there..

Cameras and movies should also help them keep afloat.. Unfortunately TVs need to get dropped price wise.. But that still hasn't happened

if you follow those markets you would know that while the xperia brand is growing it isn't enough
http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715

Company	2013 Units	2013 Market Share (%)	2012 Units	2012 Market Share (%)
Samsung	444,444.2	24.6	384,631.2	22.0
Nokia	250,793.1	13.9	333,938.0	19.1
Apple	150,785.9	8.3	130,133.2	7.5
LG Electronics	69,024.5	3.8	58,015.9	3.3
ZTE	59,898.8	3.3	67,344.4	3.9
Huawei	53,295.1	2.9	47,288.3	2.7
TCL Communication	49,531.3	2.7	37,176.6	2.1
Lenovo	45,284.7	2.5	28,151.4	1.6
Sony Mobile Communications	37,595.7	2.1	31,394.2	1.8
Yulong	32,601.4	1.8	18,557.5	1.1

they are beaten by the chinese easily.. that one of the problems Sony has to deal with.. and probably not gonna win cause the Chinese can build much cheaper..

Camera's is also a problematic market for Sony if they don't up their professional line.. digital camera's are being replaced by, ironicly, Smartphones at a rapid rate: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324251504578580263719432252


Sony was 2nd in digital camera's a few years back but went third in a shrinking market..
While Sony is doing better then a few years back, the competitors are doing much much better (expect with the PS4)

That top chart is for the overall mobile market, which by recent figures is ~50% dumb phone (very low margin) and 30% ultra cheap android phones (again, low margin). Sony almost exclusively compete in the much higher margin mid to high end smartphone market, so overall marketshare means little. Not saying though that Sony mobile is all sunshine and puppy dogs, its still scrapping a profit at best, but it is improving and looking at solely marketshare is misleading.

The second chart makes the same mistake, yes digital camera sales are getting cannabilised by smartphone sales, but its the low margin point and shoot market thats getting gutted. The high end digital SLR market is basically unaffected because smartohones can't compete (and if someone tries to point to smartphone camera pixel count and say that they are competing knows nothing about photography), and its the high end market that Sony competes in. 

This has been Sony's strategic shift in the past two years, a recognition that they can't compete with the high volume low margin sectors of the market that LG and Samsung dominate, and a refocus on the high end.