Sony bullish on Blu-ray dominance

[PaulGo]

Sony bullish on Blu-ray dominance
By James Sherwood
7th April 2008 12:52 GMT

Sony wants to own 50 per cent of the Blu-ray Disc hardware market by the end of the year, according to a company executive.

Ryoji Chubachi, President and electronics CEO at Sony, made the bold statement during a recent press conference in Taipei, according to a DigiTimes report.

Chubachi claimed that Sony already has 20 per cent of the market. But he aims to boost Sony’s share by 30 per cent through the introduction of more Blu-ray enabled products, such as HD TVs with integrated BD recorders.

The executive also said Sony will extend its focus from Blu-ray players and recorders and the PlayStation 3 out to unnamed IT devices - though the company already offers Vaio PCs with built-in BD drives.

Given the recent death of HD DVD, it’s no surprise that Sony’s predicting such a sharp upturn in consumer interest for Blu-ray. One analyst firm has already forecast that 29.4m homes around the world will own a BD player by the end of 2008, with the vast majority expected to be PS3s.

If Sony wants to beef up sales of standalone Blu-ray players then it still has some way to go. A recent study found that although 56 per cent of Brits, aged between 18 and 54, are aware of the HD format - only nine per cent have actually already bought a Blu-ray player.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04..._bluray_sales/