Sony India plans to increase its headcount by 500 employees before March 2013, even as parent, Sony Corporation has announced plans to shed an estimated 10,000 employees or about 6 per cent of its global headcount.
Mr Masaru Tamagawa, Managing Director, Sony India, said, “Our India business is showing healthy growth. We plan to increase our employee count from the current 3,300 to 3,800 by 2013 March.”
Currently, the Indian operations contribute 5 per cent to its global revenue. This may go up to 6 per cent in the next one year.
In February, Sony Corp had forecast annual losses at 220 billion yen ($2.9 billion) from the 90 billion yen it announced in November. The company had blamed a stronger yen and drop in production caused by floods in Thailand last year, as also the cost of exiting a display-panel venture with Samsung Electronics Co.
The Indian operations are its fifth largest for Sony globally after Japan, the US, China and Brazil. Unlike its global operations where Sony has lost money on its television business for eight straight years, the growth for Sony India has come primarily from the Flat Panel TV segment.
“Bravia is the top selling brand in bigger screen sizes, that is, 40 inch onwards. Sony had the highest market share of 40 per cent in the LED market space in 2010-11, selling 9.5 lakh units,” Mr Tamagawa told Business Line .
Three categories
Sony India's growth is primarily fuelled by three categories — Bravia range of televisions, Vaio branded notebooks and compact cameras like the Cyber-shot range.
The company launched a new line of 34 new Cyber-shot models, priced between Rs 5,490 and Rs 27,990 on Tuesday. The company plans to invest Rs 50 crore on the multi-media brand campaign of Cyber-shot.
“With 45 per cent growth last fiscal, we outperformed the digital camera market, which grew at 40 per cent,” the company said in a statement.
According to Sony India, the digital still camera market in the country stood at 33 lakh units in 2011-12 and is expected to increase to 42 lakh units by 2012-13. The company is aiming to sell 14 lakh units of these cameras in fiscal 2013 compared to last fiscal's 11 lakh units.
VAIO has been Sony's dark horse in India. “Sony's market share rose consistently in the consumer notebook segment in the past two years, right from 6 per cent in quarter-1, 2010 to the current 20 per cent in quarter-4, 2011,” he said.
The company plans to increase its sales points to 3,000 outlets by the end of this financial year from 2,500 in 2011-12.