Sony Vaio eyes market lead for high-tech tools

As technological awareness in the market increases, demand for higher specs of gadgets such as laptops and other consumer electronics are also increasing and Sony Philippines Incorporated is moving towards dominating this segment.

“High IT awareness and sophistication of the local market is our motivation of opening a second Vaio Shop in Cebu as we want to seize the opportunity to respond to this demand acknowledging that this is among the key drivers for growth,” said Toshiya Kagita, Sony Philippines president and managing director in an interview with reporters during the opening of its first Vaio concept shop in Cebu.

Although affected with the overall slowdown of the economy, Kagita stressed that they are still right on target.

“Overall, it was not as bad for us because growth is still there. However, growth is very slow. But we are optimistic to reach our sales target this year despite this slowdown,” said Kagita.

In previous reports, Kagita expected to double their sales from their last fiscal year’s gross sales of P4.4 billion which had been a 25.7-percent increase from their previous year’s P3.5 billion reported sales.

He said that Sony aims to intensify its position in the high-end segment of the market and will focus mainly on offering products of high value and quality.

“We do not have plans of lowering our specs to create lower segments of our products such as our notebooks because we do not want to go into the low-end market. We are a lifestyle brand and majority of our customers are young executives and professionals, yuppies and business groups,” said Kagita.

Sony’s newly opened Vaio concept shop at the SM City Cebu’s Cyberzone is a partnership between Sony Philippines and its distributor Scan and Print Graphic House Incorporated which is under the umbrella of the Silicon Valley Group of Companies.

In a separate interview, Joel L. Pe, President and chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Group of companies said that Sony Vaio’s penetration rate in the country is quite slower compared to other leading laptop brands because it is still a fairly new brand in the market.

“Sony Vaio still has a small captured market in the Philippines because Sony is not pushing for volume as they want to maintain the prestige and quality of owning a Vaio unit. Sony Vaio is a lifestyle machine and a status symbol. Its quality and finish is different from most of the notebooks you see in the market because it’s specifically focused on the high-end segment so it’s very expensive,” said Pe. – Rhia de Pablo