A company spokesman announced that the company is well on the way towards marketing its first Digital SLR this summer.
With digital SLR sales gathering steam last year, this year is expected to be a huge one for DSLRs. In 2004, 3.4 precent of all digital camera sales were SLRs; by 2009, that percentage is expected to more than double, according to a report by IDC. Sony said it hopes to capture 20 percent of the DSLR market.
Signs are good that Sony’s first digital camera will be an impressive one. Look at the DSC-R1 EVF camera; it’s the first EVF with an APS-C sized sensor on board, and it’s 10MP to boot. Sony managed to keep the price well under $1,000, which seems to indicate that they should be able to do likewise with an SLR. That would make it very competitive with what’s out now. Gaining Konica Minolta’s photographic assets will boost them towards their goal.
Last year, Sony earned a black eye when it was discovered that a batch of CCDs it had sold to almost every camera manufacturer in 2002 for use in compact digital cameras were defective. A worldwide recall was announced; almost ever camera maker had at least a handful of models that were affected.
In late December, the Jhejiang Administration for Industry and Commerce in China announced that six Sony cameras failed tests conducted there, and shipments of the cameras were stopped. While this incident applied only to cameras destined for Chinese consumers, it was nonetheless a sticky situation for Sony.
Then, in the world of music, Sony generated more controversy by adding software to its music CDs that effectively crippled PCs when users tried to play the CDs on them. Sony had to issue a fix for affected computers, and offered to replace the CDs. But the ill will created by that incident still lingers.
But any negatives from last year probably won’t last long into this one. Sony’s long-term brand recognition will work in its favor, but the key will be putting out a competitive product, and this looks likely.
The bottom line? Look for Sony to become a major player in the photo industry this year.
Maybe.
