MANILA, Philippines — At Sony’s launch of gadgets for the summer season on Tuesday, one line of products was conspicuously absent from the bevy of electronic devices presented to the local press: the Japanese brand’s smartphone products, which have recently folded back to the parent company.
But Takao Kuroda, president and managing director of Sony Philippines, saw nothing unusual with the absence of smartphones at its summer catalog, which has become a prominent part of its seasonal launches.
“We always show our sister companies’ products whenever we have an event or a catalog. We also invite them to sell during these events,” Kuroda told a group of reporters at the sidelines of the summer gadgets launch.
“But [they are not here] maybe because of the timing of the product launch,” the executive surmised. “At this moment, Sony Mobile Communications Philippines is preparing to launch new products, so that catalog is [still on hold].”
Sony Mobile Communications Philippines, Kuroda said, would be the new name of what used to be Sony Ericsson Philippines after the Japanese brand bought the 50-percent stake of Ericsson in their decade-old joint venture last year.
Kuroda, however, clarified that no formal restructuring of the mobile company would take place “as of now,” stressing that the only change that would occur would be in the name of the company and that they would continue to operate independently of the local subsidiary.
“Basically, Sony Mobile Communications would be the same as Sony Computer Entertainment, which is handling the PlayStation products here. They are basically different entities,” he said. “Sony Philippines is currently taking care of our audio-visual and IT business right now.”
Having full ownership of Sony’s mobile unit would allow the company to formulate its four-screen strategy, Kuroda said, which involves TVs, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
“Depending on the country, we can decide on how we can make the collaboration between Sony Mobile Communications and Sony Philippines possible,” he added.
Before the deal was closed, Sony Ericsson closed 2011 with a 15.7-percent year-on-year sales loss, which was affected by unstable economic situations in the West as well as the natural disasters that plagued Japan and Thailand, two major supply chain components of the Japanese brand.
Sony Mobile Communications Philippines, meanwhile, is prepping for the launch of the Sony Xperia S, the first smartphone to be purely branded as Sony’s.
The Xperia S will feature a 4.3-inch LED-backlit capacitive touchscreen with display powered by Sony Mobile BRAVIA engine.
Its Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system will be powered by a 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8260 Snapdragon processor, and will feature a micro-HDMI port for displaying high-definition videos to an external monitor.
Sony’s next-generation smartphone will have a price tag of P27,990 upon launch, which is expected to come “soon,” according to executives. View our unboxing of the Sony Xperia S here.
At Thursday’s event, Sony gave a peek at some of its products that will be launching in the next two months, including a new Cybershot digital camera with 20x optical zoom; a prosumer micro four-thirds mirrorless camera with interchangeable lens; a compact handycam with a built-in projector; and a Walkman-series portable media player powered by the Android mobile operating system.
source: interaksyon.com
