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This Matters: Sony’s 2012 Sales Suck Worse and Sharp to Fire 10 Percent

airplay-0812According to a Reuters story just posted this week, Sony has slashed its earnings AND sales forecasts for 2012-2013. This is terrible timing as it comes barely a month before CEDIA Expo next month in Indianapolis.  Apparently, Sony’s Q2 2012 profit (April through June) dropped a whopping 77 percent (vs 2011) – nearly twice what they’d originally expected. Who do they blame? You guessed it — Apple!

You can read the Reuters story here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/02/us-sony-earnings-results-idUSBRE87109K20120802

Sharp Electronics also announced yesterday it was going to cut more than 5,000 people from its global workforce – that’s nearly 10 percent. This is not good. Sharp says, like Sony, its Q2 loss was over $1.9 Billion and sales fell nearly 30 percent. Who did the company blame? You guessed it.

So, what’s this mean for you? You’d better not count out the impact that Apple’s having on your business. When it enters the market with a TV – and one that not only works seamlessly with every other Apple device in the world, but also everything integrated withAirPlay (e.g., receivers, amplifiers, speakers, etc), then the market for whole house audio systems and even control systems WILL take a hit. Bookmark this article if you don’t agree with me and let’s check in with each other a year after the intro.

Don’t be stupid. You’d better plan for this and either diversify (by getting into the ProAV market, the digital signage market or the content creation market) or you’d beter develop a model where you’re making at least 50 percent of your revenue by selling services, not products.

Seriously. Consider yourself warned.

Gary Kayye is the founder of rAVe [Publications]. Reach him at gary@ravepubs.com

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