To strengthen its position further in India, electronics giant Sony is planning to invest Rs 800 crore this year on marketing and promotional activities.
“Overall we are investing Rs 800 crore this year on marketing of which Rs 350 crore will be invested towards smartphones,” Sony India Managing Director Kenichiro Hibi told The Pioneer.
Sony India, which sells products like televisions, audio systems, smartphones and cameras, among others, had registered revenue of Rs 8,000 crore in FY'14.The company is also plans to launch 30 new smartphones by the year end.
He said that while smartphones are likely to become the biggest contributor to Sony India's revenue this year, flat panel TV sales are also expected to be strong on the back of events like the soccer and cricket world cups.
While sharing company's growth targets, Hibi said, “We are expecting to achieve Rs 5,500 crore with 15 per cent market share from smartphones by this year end and overall we are expecting to achieve Rs 10,000 crore.”
Smartphone sales in the country grew almost three-fold to over 44 million in 2013, buoyed by a strong uptake of affordable devices made by local firms such as Micromax and Karbonn, as per research firm IDC.
Samsung led the market with 38 per cent share in Q4 of 2013, followed by Micromax (16 per cent), Karbonn (10 per cent), Sony (5 per cent) and lava (4.7 per cent). Available for sale from May 12, the Sony Xperia Z2 runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and features a 5.2-inch Triluminos display, 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor and 3GB RAM.
With 16 GB built-in storage, the handset supports expansion upto 64 GB. It also features 20.7 megapixel rear camera and 3000 mAh battery. Sony also launched its SmartBand SWR10 in India, priced at Rs 5,990. The SmartBand, introduced at the Mobile World Congress in February this year, focuses on trackingfitness and health of users and monitors sleep, receives notifications and handles media playback options.