According to Sakito, ”It’s almost game over at Sony. I don’t see how Sony’s going to bounce back now,” who then pointed out that Sony’s market value has vastly diminished in comparison with its chief competitors. Its value currently stands one-ninth that of Samsung Electronics, and just one-thirtieth of Apple’s.
Sakito isn’t the only industry professional who thinks Sony is self-delusional. Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management pointed out, “Sony is an example of what happens when a company falls blindly in love with its brand. Sony uses its brand on all sorts of products: televisions, cameras, computers, music players, digital book readers and toys.”
Sony diluted its brand even more, Calkins stated, when ”in a remarkable move, several years back Sony decided to use the brand on a movie studio and on a music label. Sony’s high-end products carry the Sony brand. The low-end products carry the Sony brand, too.”
Worse, Sony products tend to overlap each other too much, causing market confusion, while Apple expertly has clean divisions in its products, such as the iPhone, iPod and iPad.
The company’s biggest problem, however, is its simplest one, according to The New York Times tech editor Hiroko Tabuchi: ”Sony hasn’t had a hit product in years” and noted the company has suffered ”astonishing lack of ideas.” This is why, she stated, Sony hasn’t turned a profit since 2008.
