Japanese electronics giant Sony (China) will focus its second-stage development strategy on creating new technologies and products, tapping into the great potential of local human resources and strengthening its research and development (R&D) capabilities on the Chinese market, said its new top executive.

Kei Kodera was appointed by Sony Corp of Japan earlier this month as the chairman of Sony (China) Ltd.

"My wish is to create more and more products, technologies and software (in China) to be sold to markets all over the world," he said.

While world manufacturing industries shift their production to China and take advantage of low labor costs, Kodera sees the nation as being capable of effectively producing higher-end products and boosting growth in other markets like Japan and some other Asian countries.

This more expanded approach comes from having worked at Sony for nearly 27 years in different markets like the Middle East, Singapore, Germany and Japan, which gave him a rich experience in market restructuring. Kodera's position as Sony's president of East Asia Sales and Marketing also contributes to this outlook.

"My two positions have special meaning and indicate that we will not look at China as a single market, but part of our East Asia development strategy."

He says developing technologies cannot be undertaken by one country alone and Sony will integrate resources from China, Japan and South Korea.

Making better use of Chinese resources, including labor, high quality engineers, infrastructure facilities (component and spare parts manufacturing and supply) and R&D resources, is part of the East Asia strategy, he said.

Kodera added China is a market with rapidly growing demand for digital products and young Chinese consumers are fond of high-tech electronics products, even more so than in some other developed markets.

Therefore, to maintain a leading position, Sony has decided to launch its high-end products here at the same time as they make their debut on European and North American markets.

Through local design and development of new products and the introduction of high-end products, Sony aims to substantially increase its sales on the Chinese market to US$4 billion by 2005 and US$8 billion by 2008, 10 times the 2002 sales intake. By then, Sony's sales in China are expected to surpass those in Japan and China will become Sony's second-largest market after the United States, Kodera said.

At present, the company's total investment in China has reached more than US$800 million.

(China Daily February 17, 2004)