Sony’s image sensor global market share took a slight dip, but this wasn’t the case with rival manufacturers. The likes of Samsung ranking second place in the global sensor market saw a rise in their shares and so did the third place occupants OmniVision with the latter seeing a more significant rise. Comparing Sony’s share for this year with that of last year, you would notice a 1.3% drop, this is in addition to the fact that the shares of its direct competitors went up.
Sony needs to fight hard to retain its dominance as the world’s largest image sensor producer. Its direct competition, Samsung, is tackling the business by offering image sensors at lower prices. Samsung electronics mentioned in a press conference, “We plan to supply 100 million to 200 million pixel sensors that are leading in technology without any major disruptions to customer requests.” The amount of sensors quoted above is enormous, this has to be matched or even doubled by market leader Sony.
Samsung is also stepping up the game concerning the number of megapixels it offers. Recently, the company kicked up the highest megapixels on a mobile camera to 200MP. This shows that Samsung is not only taking on the budget supplies but also the flagships.
Sony sure has a lot of competition coming from Samsung and OmniVision. But the company is still sitting comfortably at the top of the image sensor pecking order. Sony still dominates in the sensor market, supplying sensors to more devices than the likes of Samsung Electronics. But there is a need for Sony to sit up and rebuild its market shares to stay clear of any possible threat.
