Sony Corp said it will expand its research and development center in Shanghai and plans to have 1,000 designers to better serve local tastes.
"The fast growth of the Chinese market will test our ability to react," said Sony president Kunitake Ando in a statement released before a press conference at the opening of a new showroom in Shanghai.
Sony has invested US$200 million in China so far this year, the statement said.
Sony is trying to reverse a 23 percent net income drop in its last fiscal year by introducing products such as digital cameras and DVD recorders, and expanding into emerging markets like China. Sony said it expects China sales, which reached US$1.7 billion, or about 2.5 percent of total revenue, in the year to March 31 to reach ?1 trillion (US$9.2 billion) in fiscal 2008.
"For Sony, China is a place that offers a huge consumer market as well as low-cost manufacturing," said John Yang, technology equities analyst at Standard & Poor's, who has a "buy" rating on the stock.
The company also plans to reorganize its operations in China, where it has seven plants, into three regional units, the release said.
Ando and Sony chairman Nobuyuki Idei opened a showroom in Shanghai yesterday to help the company meet its target of boosting sales in China more than fivefold before the end of the decade. The showroom is the company's second in China, after it opened one in Beijing last year.
Sony said in March it had set up a site in Huanan Province to design, develop and procure parts for products such as DVD recorders.
Sony opened a second digital camera factory last month in Jiangsu Province, which will expand annual camera production in the country to 2.5 million units for the domestic and North American markets when the plant reaches full capacity, the company said.
"It makes sense to aggressively localize production in China, in terms of logistics," Yang said.
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