Yesterday, Sony announced that it will allocate 40% of the newly recruited engineers in Japan to the chip business such as image sensors. Previously, Sony had planned to invest 600 billion yen (about 5.4 billion US dollars) in the graphics sensor business by March 2021.
In 2019 and 2020, Sony plans to recruit 320 new engineers each year in Japan, up from 250 in 2018. This data does not include engineers recruited by Sony's overseas division.
In the smartphone image sensor market, Sony has a market share of more than 50%. However, due to the recent weak demand for smartphones, Sony has lowered its annual profit forecast for the image sensor business to 130 billion yen this month, which only accounts for 15% of the group's total profit. %. It is said that Sony is currently looking for growth points from new application scenarios such as cars and mobile phones.
