India pips Brazil, Russia to become 4th largest market for Sony

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony today said its Indian operations have emerged as its fourth largest globally, overtaking businesses in Brazil and Russia by the end of December quarter this fiscal.

The sluggish demand in developed nations has helped the company's growing subsidiary Sony India, which has clocked a revenue of over Rs 6,000 crore during April-December period in 2012-13, to improve its position in global ranking.

"The Indian operations has become the number four in global ranking. We have overtaken Brazil and Russia, which were ahead of us in last fiscal," Sony India Managing Director Kenichiro Hibi told reporters here.

The existing top three positions are held by the US, China and Japan, he said without sharing details.

"We have almost touched last year's revenue... We are completely on our track to treble our turnover to Rs 20,000 crore by 2015," Hibi said.

The Indian operations' revenue for 2011-12 was Rs 6,313 crore compared to Rs 5,446 crore in the previous fiscal. The company is expecting 30-40 per cent growth in this fiscal.

Sony India's achievement comes at a time when its parent is reporting losses due to unfavourable foreign exchange rates, impact of tsunami in Japan, floods in Thailand and adverse market sentiments in developed countries.

Sony Corporation reported 9.58 per cent fall in its sales for the year ending March 31, 2012, at 6.49 trillion yen. Its net loss also widened to 456.7 billion yen in the year.

For the quarter ending September 30 last year, the Japanese major incurred a net loss of 15.5 billion yen. Its sales stood at 1,604.7 billion yen.

Asked about the growth driver for Sony India, Hibi said: "Bravia, Vaio and Xperia are the major contributor to our rise. These three have contributed 70 per cent of our

revenue."

... contd.

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