While Sony Corp.’s smartphone business is floundering, the division that produces image sensors used in digital cameras for other phone-makers is enjoying double-digit growth.
Advertisement
“If Sony has had a weakness in the image sensor market, it has been exploiting new markets and getting new sensors to market quickly”, says Brian O’Rourke, a senior principal analyst at IHS.
Sony said the move was part of the company’s push to give autonomy to its business units to accelerate decision-making and make them more accountable for their profitability. R&D, business control, sales and other operations related to the semiconductor business, which are now overseen by business groups and R&D units within Sony Corporation, will be transferred to Sony Semiconductor Solutions. In two separate announcements earlier this year, the company also said it would invest $1.25 billion in its factories to increase image-sensor production capacity.
It is not known how much Sony shelled out to acquire SoftKinetic. The drop was not surprising, however, as the company has been pivoting away from smartphones to focus on more profitable areas such as camera sensors and PlayStation game devices.
In prior meetings with Re/code, SoftKinetic has demonstrated how its patented sensing tech – which it had previously licensed out to companies like Sony and Intel – could be deployed in a camera mounted on AR and VR hardware to add hand-tracking input. Notably, the company has been aiming at commercializing PlayStation VR (‘PS VR’) by the end of the first half of 2016.
Advertisement
Sony said that it plans to combine that sensor technology with its own to develop “the next generation of range image sensors and solutions”, according to a statement released today. Apart from this, the acquisition will go a long way in enhancing the image sensors business of Sony, which has been faring well and boasts industry leading giants like Apple Inc.
