SONY's comeback continues

It is good to be vindicated. A few months back I wrote about SONY starting to get its act together. Still not completely out of the woods, but the news keeps improving. They now have real traction in the LCD TV business with BRAVIA.

Latest from US,
“Sony continues to eat up market share in the global LCD marketplace. According to new data released by DisplaySearch, the brand’s BRAVIA range dominated sales in North America, during the fourth quarter of 2007, jumping from 9.7 per cent, to 12.8 per cent. Samsung run Sony a close second, while Vizio came in third, ahead of Sharp. Panasonic maintained its position as the leading plasma brand in the same quarter, with a 38.5 per cent market share”.

To me, BRAVIA is more of a branding and communication success (akin to perhaps VAIO and TRINITRON) unlike WALKMAN and PLAYSTATION which not only had great branding but were real innovations. The BRAVIA campaign is going from strength to strength. Strategically, the idea of focusing single-mindedly on a core category benefit (colour) is great and the executions…well they keep getting better. The competition has been caught napping. Panasonic’s VIERA range and Sharp’s AQUOS don’t even have a dedicated website i.e exist within the company website. Bravia on the other hand has a great website.

The other good news for SONY has been the triumph of Blue-ray over HD- DVD. Also the brand selling line “like.no.other” is excellent, aptly capturing SONY’s leadership position and heritage