Sony expects China's fast-expanding market for both entertainment and electronics to be a main source of growth in years to come -- despite the occasional political tension between Japan and China, chief executive Howard Stringer said yesterday.
Stringer sidestepped questions about the potential repercussions from a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a war shrine yesterday that drew immediate protests from both China and South Korea.
In the spring, Chinese resentment over Japanese wartime atrocities decades earlier swelled into violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese brand products. The antagonism died down as diplomats sought to restore calm, but is bound to resurface in the future.
"Sony is a global company with 70 percent of its earnings outside Japan and so local politics like that is less clear and appropriate for me to comment on," Stringer said at a news conference introducing company strategy in China.
"I have never actually met any Japanese politicians and I seem to be doing fine," said the Welsh-born Stringer, the first foreigner to head Sony.
"We look forward to a continuing strong relationship with China in many years to come and growing our businesses," he said.
Sony is on a campaign to build up its image in China as a brand that is "more energetic, cooler and much more fashionable than it was only a few years ago," said Kei Kodera, president of Sony (China) Ltd.
Sony products now reach only 10 percent to 20 percent of the population, leaving huge room for growth, he said.
"The fact you have GDP growth of almost 10 percent a year means millions of people are coming to a new stage where they can consume more consumer durable products," Kodera said, likening that growth to the addition of a new European country every year.
"At this moment we are quite confident about growth in China in the next four to five years," Kodera said. "We expect quite steady growth."
Sony announced a revival plan last month aimed mainly at boosting profits at its loss-making electronics unit by slashing 10,000 jobs or about 6 percent of Sony's global work force by the end of March 2008, closing 11 of its 65 plants and shrinking or eliminating 15 unprofitable electronics operations.
Although Sony has not said where the layoffs will be, they will not be in China.
"China is one of the few countries where I believe we are free from restructuring," Kodera said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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