Recently, Sony's chief financial officer Totoki Hiroki said in an interview with the Nikkei News that due to strong demand for smartphones, Sony believes that semiconductor sales will grow.
Totoki's remarks were confirmed by Sony spokesman Takashi Iida. Previously, despite the weak demand for mobile phones worldwide, Sony's report released at the end of July showed that image and sensor business profits, including chips for smartphone cameras, increased by 70%.
Previously, from the data released by IHS Markit, Sony's 2018 image sensor market share was as high as 50.1%. Although it is slightly lower than 2017, it still has more than half of the market, which is 30% higher than Samsung Electronics, which ranks second.
According to the Nikkei News, Sony has the advantage of sensors for smartphones. Due to the promotion of various social APPs such as Instagram, the performance of smartphone cameras has gradually improved, and the demand for Sony sensors with advantages in high image quality and large format has also increased. Although the shipment of smartphones has slowed down, the image sensor market will continue to grow as the multi-camera design of mobile phones requires multiple sensors.
In Japan, Sony will invest 600 billion yen in equipment investment in the three years to 2020 (this cost accounts for half of Sony's planned expenditure capital) for sensor production equipment and related research and development. In addition, Sony is still discussing investing 100 billion yen to build a new factory.
