How Much Longer Can Sony Survive On Playstation Alone?

[NiKKoM]

czecherychestnut said:

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. 

dslr are down by estimated 10 to 18% in 2013.. Even canon cut their forecast by a few million.. And mirrorless isn't cathing on.. Its expected that the dslr market will be Canon/Nikon/Sony market within 5 years.. Its not unaffected..

Sony also has low end smartphones Xperia L, tipo, the new E2 and T2 ultra.. These last 2 are specially for emerging markets like china, africa and middle east.. Sony has been a high end product manufactor but that is all in the past.. They trying to compete in every level of the market..

I'm not trying to say doom and gloom but people should look more at the context of the markets Sony has products in.. Which are competitive and hard.. It takes more for them to recover then just cutting of their tv division and sell more phones..