Sony may ship as many as 600,000 Blu-ray players in the U.S. this year

[Tekman]

Sony May Increase U.S. Shipments of Blu-Ray by Sixfold in 2007
By Ian King and Hiroshi Suzuki

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp., the world's second- largest consumer electronics maker, said shipments of Blu-ray DVD players in the U.S. may jump sixfold this year as it expects movies exclusively available to the device will lure buyers.

Sony may ship as many as 600,000 Blu-ray players in the U.S. this year, from less than 100,000 units in 2006, said Randy Waynick, senior vice president of the U.S. home products division, at a meeting in San Francisco yesterday.

Sony, based in Tokyo, forecast last month that net income in the year ending March 31 will more than double, helped by its movie unit, increased sales of Bravia televisions and narrower losses at the PlayStation game unit. Sony's Blu-ray fights with Toshiba Corp.'s HD DVD in high-definition television.

``You'll see growth in multiples of five or six times'' for Blu-ray player shipments in the U.S. in 2007 from a year earlier, Waynick told reporters at a meeting. ``A lot of that will depend how competitive'' it becomes, he said.

The company manufactures its Blu-ray players at a factory in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo.

``The movies are very compelling,'' Waynick said, without disclosing any titles. Out of the top 20 blockbusters, ``there were 14 or 15 that were exclusive Blu-ray.''

Shares of Sony fell 0.8 percent to 6,590 yen as of the 11 a.m. break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.4 percent.