Bloomberg published an interesting article about the financial situation of the Sony Image sensor business. And Image Sensor World analyzed the key data which I will report here:
Here are the main statements:
- Sony’s revenue from the image sensors gained an estimated 30% last year.
- About 80% of the imaging sensors Sony produces are sold outside the company, said Masahito Takeda, a spokesman for Sony.
- Most of the 10.9B yen ($111M) operating profit last quarter from Sony’s device division was generated by image sensor sales, Deutsche Bank estimates.
The article also quotes interesting TSR market data:
- Global shipments of the imaging sensor will probably grow to 3.14B units this year
- Sensors made by Sony sold for an average of $7.30 each, almost four times the $1.93 that Samsung got for similar chips, based on 2012 unit sales and revenue estimates by TSR
- Sony’s revenue from image sensors rose to $2.45B in 2012 from $1.89B a year earlier, garnering 32% of the global market
- Omnivision ranked second with 14.4%, followed by Samsung at 12.9%.
The system camera sensor business plays a minor role here. Smartphone and Tablet Image sensors are by far more important for Sony.
21 Responses
“Sensors made by Sony sold for an average of $7.30 each”
Wow :0
So, in another words, samsung managed to ship 50% more sensors as units than sony.
No, Sony has 32% of the global market share. Samsung has 12.9%.Sony sold more sensors and their sensors costs more two. Two different things.
In the wording, the percentage of market share refer to revenue share, not unit share
I didn’t do the math, but even if Samsung ships more sensors than Sony, Sony earns more. That’s good for Sony, not bad for Samsung.
If Sony doesn’t play their cards right, they’ll end up losing to Samsung in the future in the sensor market, just like what Samsung did to Sony with TVs
Just $7.30?? learn something new.. i always taught the sensor is like, 50 to 100 dollar range..
a cellphone with no plan could cost $10 only.
the sensor on that can’t cost $50
owh.. including cellphone sensor.. now that does make sense.. i thought its the average price for dslr sensor only..
That $7.30 is the average cost, most likely would be for the sensor you see in an iPhone or similar product, the APSC and Full Frame ones would be much more than this
I think the cost of a phone sensor is about the same with Samsung’s, what makes Sony’s average bigger is the sales of the larger sensors. Maybe.
of course it is, given that Sony also sells sensors to Nikon and Pentax, Olympus…
Samsung doesn’t seem to mass produce FF sensors at all.
What about interchangeable sensors? Monochrome sensor, RGBE sensor, CMYG sensor, HDR sensor…
“Sensors made by Sony sold for an average of $7.30 each”
Averaging D800 sensor and smartphone $1 sensors. 🙂
Although for smartphones, Sony sell whole camera modules, must be a few $$ more.
There is something wrong with the math here, it seems to me. If Sony sold 3bn sensors for 7$ apiece, this amounts to some 20Bn$. Yet sales are valued at 2.45Bn$. What gives?
A larger number were sold at $1 than the $25 D800 sensor.
Just a guess, but I would say no NEX camera costs more than $50 for sony to build.
You got to be kidding with $25 for full-frame sensor. In 2007 Sony was selling 12 MP CMOS sensor for $300
I meant 12 MP APSC sensor that was in D300. It was listed as $300 per unit on Sony site in 2007.
So that means that charging wayyyyyyyyy more for FullFrame cameras is just an excuse to keep that segment unreachable for most users (despite brand) and profit more?
It seems like that, as apparently a77 and a99 arent that different in materials and constructiong but definately in $1500 extra price… hmm….
The cost of making sensors increase exponentially with sensor size, due to lower yield. FF sensors are MUCH more expensive than those $7.30, which is just the average price. Remember that the vast majority of sensors sold by Sony are small sensors for mobile devices, hence the low average price.
Not just mobile devices but also many other products, like security cameras, etc.