Sony Phils sees double-digit growth in sales

Sony Philippines sees a double-digit  increase in sales for fiscal year 2008-2009.

For fiscal year 2007-2008, Sony Philippines gross sales amounted to P4.4 billion, or a 25.7-percent increase from the P3.5 billion reported in the previous fiscal year.

Sony Philippines is confident sales of its new Vaio notebook computer will account for almost 10 percent of gross sales.

“Filipinos always want to look for electronic products that suit their lifestyles. Filipinos are after all, technology friendly,” Sony Philippines president and managing director Toshiya Kagita said during the soft opening of its Vaio Shop in Megamall last week.

The Vaio notebooks are marketed in two levels, the high-end and the popular models. The high-end models has a price range between P80,000 to P90,000 while the popular models sell between P60,000 to P80,000.

The Sony Philippines president is not concerned about market share preferring to focus on the target market.

“We want to create our own market share,” he said, adding that they are looking towards double-digit growth from the previous years sale figures.

Sony emphasizes connectivity in its product line. Meaning, one product is enhanced with the utilization of another. For example, the computer becomes a platform for producing, enhancing, and editing pictures taken from Sony Handycam or digital cameras.

“We would like to create an environment of connectivity, where we have various information technology (IT) and audio-visual (AV) products that will compliment each other. It will allow flexibility for the users,” Kagita explained. Last year, top growth in sales was the HandyCam and digital camera, followed by a steady sale of high-density (HD) television sets especially its 40-inch and bigger “Bravia” sets. Sale of Sony Bravia increased by about 20 percent year-on-year.

HD TV products accounted for more than 30 percent of sales, digital (camcorders and digicameras) products over 30 percent, Vaio notebooks less than 10 percent, and somewhere in the vicinity of 15 percent for other products.

The Vaio Shop is a dedicated store for Sony’s Vaio notebooks and complete accessories. Aside from the full range of Vaio notebooks, the store also offers a full range of Sony technologies and solutions that connect with the HD notebooks.

These include a digital home concept featuring the new Vaio TP2, a TV side-PC model which, on top of its PC functions, can serve as digital media server and a Blu-ray player with HD output; HD World that allows bundling of HD products, including HD HandyCam, and HD Cyber-shot.

Aside from the Vaio Shop Megamall, sony Philippines will open the second shop in Cebu next month.

“We are looking to open two more Vaio shops,” Kagita said, alluding to its being located in Metro Manila as well as future prospects in Mindanao. It also operates 16 Sony Centers and the 31 service centers nationwide.