Sony Can’t Make Image Sensors Fast Enough to Keep Up With Demand



Bloomberg is reporting that Sony is having trouble keeping up with the demand for its sensors this year and that even the capital investment being made in a new Nagasaki plant that will be operational in April 2021 may not be enough to fully satisfy demand going foward.

“Sony Corp. is working around the clock to manufacture its in-demand image sensors, but even a 24-hour operation hasn’t been enough.

For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of Sony’s semiconductor unit. The electronics giant is more than doubling its capital spending on the business to 280 billion yen ($2.6 billion) this fiscal year and is also building a new plant in Nagasaki that will come online in April 2021.

“Judging by the way things are going, even after all that investment in expanding capacity, it might still not be enough,” Shimizu said in an interview at the Tokyo headquarters. “We are having to apologize to customers because we just can’t make enough.””

In May Sony said they control about 51% of the image sensor market by revenue which is growing thanks to smartphones, they believe will hit 60% by 2025. You can read the full story here.

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