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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > General > Sony Ericsson to relinquish its low-end camera market Bookmark topic

Just a week after strong cameraphone sales figures were announced, Sony Ericsson's president says its parent has ceded the low-end camera market to mobile phones.

There's nothing new in the BusinessWeek article for regular readers of TheFeature, but in the very last paragraph there's a buried gem: Sony Ericsson president Katsumi Ihara says that Sony has given up the low-end digital camera market to cameraphones. While last week's sales figures showed that cameraphones outsold digital cameras nearly 2-to-1 in 2003, this is the first concrete statement from a vendor that the inevitable is beginning.

While it's interesting to hear this comment from the Sony Ericsson president rather than a Sony exec, it's still quite telling, and also reveals some of the two companies' strategy for dealing with the changing market. The latest Sony Ericsson handsets use expertise from Sony's digital imaging products, and even look like Cyber-shot digital cameras when they're used for taking pictures. Sony Ericsson is even playing up the Sony digital camera angle, hoping it gives them some cachet.

Cameraphones this year will eat into low-end digital camera sales, and as 1- and 2-megapixel handsets become more common, medium-tier cameras will also be threatened. It's hard not to think that low- and middle-range digital cameras aren't under serious threat in the next several years, as cameraphones will be sufficient for most average people's photographic needs.


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Posted: 2004-04-12 00:05:12
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This is bad news for SE,i hope that is a mistake.

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Posted: 2004-04-12 00:15:47
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yes and no.
low end phones, make marketshare, but SE doesn't want market share, they want to make the best phones and have enough profit.
the reason i think they're not making many low end phones is because there are already so many out there, and the market is getting over stocked again when you look at the low end segment (although SE could've produced abit more T230).
so they'll focus more on the midlevel phones T630 and soon K700
on the high end phones S700 and new Txxx model.
and the symbian OS phone: P900 new Pxxx later this year (september maby) and a symbian OS 9.0 phone (intro close to cebit i think).

so its actually good, and its good for us, they'll focus more on high end phones. who is really thinking of lanching QVGA cam phones? (except nokia 6610i) ha nobody, VGA phones will be a standard request this year and next year 1.3mega pix cams will be availeble everywhere, sales of camera's will drop more, and high end phones will know a little boost, as for the sales of low end phone i think they'll drop massive.
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Posted: 2004-04-12 00:42:21
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You are probable richt,but marketshare is important for SE.
Also make good phone's is Important to,you know why.

If SE make good phone's than will rais the marketshare to richt?
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Posted: 2004-04-12 02:00:31
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it is, in fact good news for SE. if you read the article carefully, you will see that it is SONY that is giving up the low-end camera market. i.e., it is giving the low-end camera market, presumably cameras up to 1.3 megapixels or something like that, to SE, since they figure that people who want 5 megapix cameras will buy a dedicated camera instead.

this is part of the overall integration strategy between sony and SE. i'm guessing here, but it also seems to me that when you look at the recent product launches of sony's clie PDA product line, sony might be giving the clie the low to mid-range market for PDA's and giving the the high-end of that market to the SE Pxxx.

thus, as time goes on, i think SE will really benefit from integration into and the power of Sony's marketing machine.

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Posted: 2004-04-12 03:22:04
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