1.1 The Industry
Sony, originally known as the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company, dates back over half a century ago to post war Japan in 1946. Sony has since used product innovation and stringent marketing strategies to achieve massive growth to become the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturer. The Sony brand is directly involved and dedicated to the design and development, manufacture and sale of a wide range of electronic devices, equipment and instruments for consumer, industrial and professional markets (sony.co.uk).
Sony UK has many manufacturing subsidiaries around Europe and the globe. Sony Europe operates three main European factories for production. These are situated in Barcelona Spain, Nitra Slovakia and Budapest Hungary. Additional to this, the Sony Corporation owns numerous factories around the world producing consumer electronics products for the global market.
Sony UK are the market leaders in consumer electronics and currently own around 13% of the total AV/IT (Audio Visual and Information Technology) market. Sony’s nearest UK competitors are Samsung with a nearing 12.1% market share in February 2008, followed by Panasonic and Apple with 8.9% and 6.1% market share respectively. Sony UK’s turnover FY07, ending in March 2008, totalled £947m, resulting in a total annual market share of 15.5% with a total AV/IT market value of £6,109m. This is an annual increase of market share of 0.3% over FY06’s 15.2% (Appendix 1).
Sony, over the years, has developed into a strong brand name with very high customer loyalty. There are a massive amount of consumers out there that only buy Sony products (Business Superbrands, 2005, p. 231). The AV market has become excessively more competitive over recent years with the substantial growth of competitors such as Samsung, Panasonic and Phillips to name a few.
2.0 Aims and Objectives
2.1 Aim
The aim of this project is to test the validity and reliability of Sony
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