Sony President and Managing Director Hiroaki Kobayashi told reporters yesterday that the firm’s Philippine unit posted an estimated P4.4 billion in gross sales for the 12-month period ending March 2007, significantly higher than the P3.5 billion reported in the previous fiscal year ending March 2006.

Mr. Kobayashi attributed the sales growth to the higher demand for Sony’s 40-inch and bigger “Bravia” television sets.

He said demand for Sony Bravia increased b about 20% year on year.

“Filipinos who would buy new television sets prefer to buy bigger models. We are happy that consumers always have Sony as their first choice,” Mr. Kobayashi said.

He said Sony currently commands half of the widescreen TV market in the country. Because of this, he said the company has introduced new products to take advantage of the high number of existing Sony widescreen TV owners.

“These widescreen TV owners would ask what else they can do with their TV sets. That is why we are introducing these new gadgets,” Mr. Kobayashi said.

New Products

Among the new gadgets that the company launched yesterday are six new Sony “Cyber-shot” digital camera models that can be connected to Bravia TVs.

“The new digital cameras would allow users to view puctures through your widescreen TV,” Mr Kobayashi said.

He said it was important for Sony to introduce a wide variety of Cyber-shot models since sales of digital cameras peak during summer.

“Sales of digital cameras are 20-30% higher during summer, than Christmas since it is during summer when people go on vacations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sony also launched four new Sony “Handycam” video camera models.

The company said the new models are the first camera recorders compliant with the “x.v Colour” standard that allows consumers to enjoy better video quality when recording.

Piracy a Big Issue

Sony said widespread piracy of films, music and video games is forcing many multinational companies to have second thoughts on manufacturing software in the Philippines.

“Piracy is the big concern and this is the reason why we can’t do business here,” said Mr. Kobayashi.

He said this was why Sony would not even import copies of video games for their popular PlayStation Portable (PSP) into the Philippines.

However, he could not say just how much the industry lost to piracy, saying; “It’s very difficult to quantify.”

Pirated versions of movies, music and software are widely available in many shopping malls in the Philippines despite numerous complaints from companies and foreign governments.

According to the Business Software Alliance, software piracy in 2005 cost the Philippine software industry P3.9 billion.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance said the loss to US copyright industries in the Philippines in 2004 was $139 million.

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