Sony: Smartphones Second-Fastest Growing Category

New Delhi: Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony will focus on increasing penetration in the Indian mobile phone market to tap the potential of the segment, which has become its "next most emerging category."

"TV is the biggest category for Sony India but the next most emerging category is mobiles. The current share of mobile phone is around 9 percent (of the company's total revenues)," Sony India managing director Kenichiro Hibi told PTI.

Sony India had posted total revenue of Rs 8,000 crore in 2012-13.

When asked what are the plans for the mobiles business, he said: "Primary strategy is to increase penetration in the mobile phone market because we are a late comer."

Earlier, the company had its mobile phone business globally under 'Sony Ericsson' and in 2011 it announced buying out of erstwhile `partner Swedish telecom equipment maker and changed it to Sony.

According to research firm IDC, overall mobile phone market in India reached about 218 million units in 2012, growing 16 per cent year-on-year.

Of this, 16.3 million units were smart phones but the category saw a growth of about 48 per cent. Demand for smart phones is expected to be around 34-36 million units this year.

Presently, Sony only has only smart phone under the Xperia range in its product line.

When asked, about the future launches of the company, Hibi said: "We have variety of products. We will renew. We will launch new models to replace old models."

He said Sony will leverage on the of its audio-visual (AV) technology and integrate those feature in its Xperia range of phones.

"We have changed the strategy completely (for mobile phones) because we want to put Sony's AV technologies heritage into those mobile phones," he said, adding the company would use its global assets from music and pictures for contents on mobile phones.

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