September 23, 2002

Sony becoming a sleeper PC giant

Quick--who's the fastest-growing major PC maker in the world? If you guessed Dell, you're wrong.

Despite flopping in the PC market a few years ago, Japanese consumer-electronics giant Sony has finally stepped up to become one of the computer industry's big players.

The company's worldwide computer shipments grew faster than those of any other major brand in 2001, according to statistics from research firm Gartner Dataquest. And this year, shipments increased 23.7 percent in the second quarter, even as the market shrank by nearly a percentage point. With these gains, Sony has marched from its No. 12 spot in worldwide market share at the end of last year to No. 8 at the end of the second quarter. (full story)

My spin:There's three things that Sony has got for it: 1) money - it's no two bit fly by night retailer or vendor 2) brand - EVERYONE from Osama on up knows the Sony brand 3) integrated products - it's memory stick works across the board and BUILT IN with all of its product lines. These are compelling pluses for Sony.

If this will help it get a significant part of PC business I do not know...but Sony's got nothing to lose. They can try and see how things go. If things don't go so well in the business space, just phase it out.

0 comments