Sony is bleeding money - business strategy discussion

And with Spotify killing music unlimited you should be able to hear it on every Sony device with a audio out :)
Impressive segue back on topic:oops:

Seriously, I think it's a natural move from Sony, I don't see how Music Unlimited could be anything substantial in terms of revenue. A deal with a popular existing service was the right move and makes the console more attractive, it's win-win if they can shift the current subscribers to spotify as transparently as possible.
 
Google only cares about volume. So they'll be happy with sub $100 phones for places like India and Africa, because they want maximum number of eyeballs for their ads.

But FB is starting to beat them at the ad game so they may somewhat regret flooding the market with low-capability devices, thought it probably doesn't require much power to run a social networking app like FB, Instagram, etc.?

As for Sony, they tried premium PCs with the VAIO line, with prices higher than even Macs and they couldn't sell enough, though some of them had nice design (not sure about build quality).

I think there is a market for Android devices with nice design and build quality. But Xiaomi is putting out such phones (basically iPhone copies) at a cut rate price so maybe premium Android devices still can't fetch a high price. Xiaomi seems more interested in hitting the jackpot with a big IPO than having sustainable high margin products.

Sony can still make striking designs but it seems there aren't as many people willing to pay a premium for Sony products, at least not like the way Apple products command premium pricing. Certainly those of us old enough remember when Sony was the aspirational brand. It still may be in some parts of the world but not sure how their brand got lumped with the rest.
 
Impressive segue back on topic:oops:

Seriously, I think it's a natural move from Sony, I don't see how Music Unlimited could be anything substantial in terms of revenue. A deal with a popular existing service was the right move and makes the console more attractive, it's win-win if they can shift the current subscribers to spotify as transparently as possible.

Doesn't Sony have something like 30-45% of the music industry, how could they not make a successful music service with that much of the market. They could have put it on every device out there and put all their music exclusive on it for a few weeks before it hit the other services and made a killing.
 
Doesn't Sony have something like 30-45% of the music industry, how could they not make a successful music service with that much of the market. They could have put it on every device out there and put all their music exclusive on it for a few weeks before it hit the other services and made a killing.
Music unlimited was slow, cumbersome and everything but modern. I think it's the worst streaming service I have tried.

And hey, it's their music anyway :)
 
Don't people still pirate music?

Music isn't going to sell devices any more. It sold a lot of iPods for awhile but that business is pretty much gone.
 
So there's "serious money" to be made in the high-end but the only viable markets are the low-end and mid-range? That's absurd. There is certainly a contested high-end Android market because Samsung, LG, HTC, Lenovo and Motorola have all dabbled in it. What non of them have done is taken and held it with great products after great product.

Reread what I wrote, you completely missed the point.

Noone but Samsung (and to a much lesser extent Lenovo) is making any serious money at the high end for Android. And even Samsung is starting to see reduced profit in the high end.

Meaning noone but Samsung and a very few others to a significantly lesser extent are making any serious money from the high end in Android. Not that there is serious money in the high end. And yes, there is, but it's limited. And pretty much mostly split between Samsung and Apple with little left over for other handset makers. At least not in even remotely as much volume as those two.

I also don't see evidence of Android phones shifting to low-mid range, I see now evidence of contraction of the high-end Android market, nor would it make any sense unless Android phone buyers are somehow genetically, culturally or economcally disposed to buy cheaper handsets that people buying high-end iOS or Windows Phone handsets.

Really? And where have you been living.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/dec/08/smartphones-prices-declines-forecast-Android-Apple/

The average smartphone price will reach $297 this year, but that’s predicted to drop to $241 by 2018, according to IDC.

In the U.S. and other developed markets, smartphone prices on average are not expected to drop much, according to IDC. Most U.S. consumers don’t pay for the full price of the phone anyway because of subsidies offered by wireless operators.

In emerging markets such as India, however, average smartphone prices are predicted to drop from $135 this year to $102 in 2018, according to IDC.

Google’s Android operating system will maintain more than 80 percent market share worldwide for smartphones shipped over the next four years, IDC said.

But because of falling prices, Android’s revenue share is predicted to fall from 67 percent today to 61 percent in 2018.

Meanwhile, IDC says Apple will continue to command top dollar for its smartphones. So Apple’s iOS operating system will gain market share based on revenue from now until 2018 – rising from 30 percent to 34 percent.

The average price of all smartphones (iOS, Android, BB, Windows Phone, etc.) will reach almost 300 USD. But is predicted to continue dropping. And if you read further, you'll see it's because while Android will continue to expand on it's share of the market, it'll do so while eroding it's ASP, because almost all growth is now in the budget and mid-range. Hmmm, kind of like the PC market, no? Meanwhile iOS is predicted to grow their ASP gaining marketshare based on revenue, at the expense of losing marketshare based on sales volume. Compared to Android losing marketshare based on revenue, but gaining marketshare based on sales volume.

And that isn't an isolated report. It's fairly unanimous from multiple sources.

For example, from an older source, http://www.eweek.com/mobile/smartphone-sales-near-saturation-point-in-mature-markets-idc.html

According to the report, worldwide smartphone shipments are expected to surpass 1 billion units in 2013, representing 39.3 percent growth over 2012. While a number of trends co-exist in the global smartphone market, none have more of an affect on driving market growth than the steady decline in average selling prices (ASPs).

and

In 2013, IDC said it expects smartphone ASPs to be $337, down 12.8 percent from $387 in 2012. This trend will continue in the years to come and IDC expects smartphone ASPs to gradually drop to $265 by 2017, the report projected, thanks in part to the multitude of low-cost devices running Google’s Android operating system.

Compare that to the forecase for 2014 above. It's declined from 387 USD in 2012 to 337 USD in 2013 to 297 USD in 2014. Yet the market continues to grow. Does that indicate that the high end is growing substantially compared to budget and midrange?

I can continue to dig up more sources, like Samsung revising their smartphone forecasts due to high end handset sales tapering off and increased pressure from Chinese manufacturer's on the low end. As well as the ASP of their phones being eroded leading to lower margins and lowered revenue forecasts. But, back to your reply, for now.

Again you seem to be pigeon-holding a set of OS users. My first laptop was a cheap HP, my second an expensive Sony Vaio, my third a very expensive Dell XPS2, my fourth a relatively inexpensive 12" Apple PowerBook G4. There, and have always been, expensive Windows PCs but the problem with Windows PC, a problem somewhat shared by Android handsets, is that the basic perceived value has been decimated by multiple manufacturers racing to the bottom in terms of pricing. But this does not mean that there still doesn't exist a nice juicy high-end market although traditionally that was gaming and as game sales show, that's a shadow of it's former self on Windows.

What part of ASP (average selling price) of the entire Android market and Smartphone market and PC market do you not understand? Yes, obviously there are still individual SKU's that command a premium. But they are mostly a stagnant (either slow growth or slow decline) market segment for PC and close to being stagnant for smartphones. It doesn't matter if you've been buying expensive PCs, because I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about the market as a whole.

And Sony's problem, like everybody's problem, was trying to do everything. There was no focus and they were spreading themselves trying to accommodate the low, medium and high-end of the market. When you drop, in particular, the low-end devices you don't have as many considerations about whether your software/firmware platform will run well (or at all) on cheap ass devices. You have less devices to support overall, you can then provide better after-sale support. One of the biggest downsides to Android is the lack of significant OS updates (without jailbreaking) and it's not all the fault of Google and the carriers. But when's the incentive when profits are so low to start with? The vast majority of Android handsets are fire-and-forget in terms of support.

Actually, Sony's problem is that they are abandoning the only growth markets in Android smartphones because they cannot compete in the low end with the Chinese manufacturers. They are mistakenly trying to hold onto the high end Android market where there is little to no growth potential and where the majority of the market is owned by Samsung. And because they are using the same OS as those Chinese manufacturers, there is little to differentiate yourself from them other than in build quality at higher price points in the budget and low end. And just like how that failed with many PC manufacturers, it is also failing for Sony. And just like in the PC market if you try to only go for the high end, you're quite likely to fail with no presence in the budget and midrange. By the time Dell and HP learned their lesson they had already let Asus and Acer catch up to and sometimes surpass them. While other's just folded. We'll start to see more of that in the Smartphone market going forward.

Oh and it's not "everybody's problem." There are plenty of Android smartphone vendors doing well and experiencing growth. It's just that they happen to predominantly be Chinese manufacturers who are now experiencing meteoric rise at the expense of established non-Chinese Android manufacturers. Xiaomi for example. Hmmm, much like Asus and Acer of the 2000's in the PC market and much like Samsung and LG in the TV market during the same timeframe. You grow by starting at the bottom. Forcing out entrenched players that attempt to cling to the high end. Like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, etc. in the TV market when faced by Samsung, LG, and Vizio. Or like RCA and Magnavox in the 70's when faced by Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, etc. History is rife with examples of this sort of market dynamic. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda all did the same to established car brands in the 70's as well by dominating the budget segment and working their way up in to the premium segment.

TL:DR - Sony doesn't have much chance of holding onto their smartphone division.

Regards,
SB
 
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Don't people still pirate music?

Music isn't going to sell devices any more. It sold a lot of iPods for awhile but that business is pretty much gone.
If you want to listen to music you can very easily find it free,streaming and legal. Youtube provides.it's on mobile devices it can be harder, but I think few bothers to download anything anymore.
 
Reread what I wrote, you completely missed the point.
Clearly. The point I took away was that nobody could make money in high-end even though some companies are. Having re-read it, that's still what I take away so can you try again?

Meaning noone but Samsung and a very few others to a significantly lesser extent are making any serious money from the high end in Android. Not that there is serious money in the high end. And yes, there is, but it's limited.
Many companies makes a good life in a niche premium markets. Is the premium Android market as big as iOS? Probably not given Android market is so huge because most of the handsets are low-end freebies and not necessarily the result of a platform 'choice' by the owner but it there enough for one company to grab it and do well, I say there is.

I've been reading these stories since the iPhone launched. Here's Bloomberg from 2008 and here's Garner predicting the same in 2009 because the market was saturated. Here's ZDNet in 2013 reporting the average price of smartphones has fallen. The last one is accurate but the average price dropped not because of changes to high-end prices but because of the low-end/mid-range prices dropping and that's the volume of the market so averages drops.

Analysts and journalists have a very poor track record on predicting the smartphone market. I remember in 2009 iOS was doomed because Android was massively improving (true) and cheaper devices would kill Apple's market. I remember the same story in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The average price of all smartphones (iOS, Android, BB, Windows Phone, etc.) will reach almost 300 USD. But is predicted to continue dropping
Yes, averages - which are derived by the data points at the top and the bottom and everything in-between by numeric mass pulling it this way or that. All this demonstrates is that there are far more cheap phones than expensive phones. This is the same for many markets - if you look at the average price of what cars sell at could conclude there's no market for premium vehicles, or even that BMW and Mercedes must be hurting but the truth its very different.

And if you read further, you'll see it's because while Android will continue to expand on it's share of the market, it'll do so while eroding it's ASP, because almost all growth is now in the budget and mid-range.

What data shows expansion in the mid-range and none in the high-end?

I've read this article many times for many years. And yet the size of the market continues to grow and more phones are sold every year. It's a real mystery!
 
If you want to listen to music you can very easily find it free,streaming and legal. Youtube provides.it's on mobile devices it can be harder, but I think few bothers to download anything anymore.

This is bacisally what my wife and most of my non-tech savvy friends do actually. I found it pretty shocking when I realised, and I'm constantly reminding her that whilst it's not illegal, it's ethically questionable since you're enjoying someone's hard work without them being financially compensated for it.

I'd imagine the vast majority of the, now-grown-up, Napster generation use Youtube and Ad-supported Spotify for their music streaming needs.
 
This is bacisally what my wife and most of my non-tech savvy friends do actually. I found it pretty shocking when I realised, and I'm constantly reminding her that whilst it's not illegal, it's ethically questionable since you're enjoying someone's hard work without them being financially compensated for it.
Copyright means it is illegal. If an artist hasn't provided permission for their work to be redistributed or publicly performed, to do such is illegal. As I understand it, YT has gone to lengths to legitimise the music side of its service and recompense artists, but that's guesswork on my part based on the recent changes and how we had a spell of music removal which seems to have ended as a policy now.
 
Copyright means it is illegal. If an artist hasn't provided permission for their work to be redistributed or publicly performed, to do such is illegal. As I understand it, YT has gone to lengths to legitimise the music side of its service and recompense artists, but that's guesswork on my part based on the recent changes and how we had a spell of music removal which seems to have ended as a policy now.

But it can't be illegal for someone to watch a video that has already been uploaded onto Youtube? Surely not!

Sure I agree it's likely illegal for these folks that upload these music videos/song without the copyright holders' permission, but I can't believe my missus can be held liable for watching those uploaded videos?

Otherwise I better tell her quickly. She's too precious, she won't last long in prison :(
 
But it can't be illegal for someone to watch a video that has already been uploaded onto Youtube? Surely not!
No. Well, it probably is if you knowingly watch/listen to illegal copies, but no-one would enforce it if so!

Sure I agree it's likely illegal for these folks that upload these music videos/song...
I think that's changed, and music on YT (at least on official channels) is legitimate like Spotify. Google took YT to MP3 ripper websites and the like to task to prevent illegal downloads. It'd be hypocritical if they then let their users embed illegal music into the videos!
 
No. Well, it probably is if you knowingly watch/listen to illegal copies, but no-one would enforce it if so!

I think that's changed, and music on YT (at least on official channels) is legitimate like Spotify. Google took YT to MP3 ripper websites and the like to task to prevent illegal downloads. It'd be hypocritical if they then let their users embed illegal music into the videos!

The music my missus listens to is mainly gospel, so pretty niche and these artists/labels likely aren't as quick to get in touch with Google about illegal uploads on sites like YT. I'm pretty sure these aren't official channels, but I may be wrong. YT is a big place, and I know Google sometimes doesn't quite get around to removing all the unscrupulous content on there fast enough. Again I may be wrong, so I'll check.
 
Doesn't Sony have something like 30-45% of the music industry, how could they not make a successful music service with that much of the market. They could have put it on every device out there and put all their music exclusive on it for a few weeks before it hit the other services and made a killing.
Killing... you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

What you are describing would be a predatory monopoly leveraging, it could trigger an antitrust investigation, and it would certainly jeopardize many business dealing, it would also anger the consumers and would lead to a boycott. Sony is not in a position to act like Apple or Microsoft. They would lose their reputation which, arguably, was instrumental in making the PS4 dominate this generation. I think the short term gain isn't worth the long term loss.
 
Doesn't Sony have something like 30-45% of the music industry, how could they not make a successful music service with that much of the market

...I've seen a local TV streaming service here, and compared it to Video unlimited - guess which one was better...

imho Sony still thinks to be an hardware company (which they are), whereas they'd be more and more a SERVICE company.
I've seen Sony has the 'one sony" logo. Like microsoft's "one microsoft".
If you look to the market, you see who is 'one' and who is 'many'.
 
Killing... you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

What you are describing would be a predatory monopoly leveraging, it could trigger an antitrust investigation, and it would certainly jeopardize many business dealing, it would also anger the consumers and would lead to a boycott. Sony is not in a position to act like Apple or Microsoft. They would lose their reputation which, arguably, was instrumental in making the PS4 dominate this generation. I think the short term gain isn't worth the long term loss.

Sony has a good name ? I thought that was done with the 2005 root kits on cds
 
Sony has a good name ? I thought that was done with the 2005 root kits on cds
Really? You want to troll with the rootkit argument?

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, BMG was still headed by Thomas Hesse when Sony bought 50% stake in the company. He was a technologically-illiterate exec, and was presented with a technology to prevent piracy and they implemented it. It wasn't from Sony, it was a third party company which nobody talks about. At the time I was quite active and angry against them and boycotted Sony-BMG ever since, I talked about it as much as I could.

At the same time the Playstation division launched the PS3 with a complete CD ripper and lookup CDDB for track naming, and allowed to export it on any USB device, including any MP3 players, it could rip BMG's CDs. Shills were telling people to boycott the PS3 because of BMG, the irony was palpable. It was hilariously stupid. Playstation were the good guys in this debate. They had issues elsewhere, but the new management are extremely upfront about past mistakes. Having a CD ripper in the PS3 wasn't one of them.

Sony only took control of BMG in 2008, they didn't have control until that point in time. Thomas Hesse is gone, but he certainly had enough time to tarnish Sony's name.

This is 2015. I'm talking about today. The ongoing attitude of Sony Playstation execs since E3 2013 is near perfect, they currently make the brand look very good with their brutal honesty, and they must stay on this track because it's obviously working.
 
Shifty I think you're a little off on "stealing" gospel music. Firstly, when someone copies a gospel song, they are only partaking in the plenty bounty before them. Second, gospel musicians are all about sharing the message. They don't worry about small stuff like compensation. When one revenue stream closes, another one opens. Lastly, anti-trust doesn't apply with gospel. They follow God's law. Man's law means nothing to them.
 
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