Sony expects double-digit growth, offers new ‘lifestyle’ pocket PC

SONY Philippines Inc. has high hopes it will ride the current economic storm unscathed.

Toshiya Kagita, Sony Philippines president and managing director, still expects double-digit growth in sales this year for the entire Japanese electronics maker’s product line.

The company offers a wide range of products here in the Philippines, from the popular TVs to projectors, home video, audio and theater systems, digital cameras, camcorders, computers and peripherals, in-car entertainment equipment, storage and recording media, as well as accessories like batteries and chargers. Sony does not operate a manufacturing facility in the country.

Erica Dela Cruz, marketing communications supervisor, said although the company has yet to finalize the December sales, she said they were quite surprised that the takeup of the Sony Bravia television sets and even the Walkman MP3 players were high.

Displaying the company’s confidence in the Philippine market, it will launch in February its “pocket-style PC (personal computer), the Sony Vaio P series, just one month after it debuted at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

“With the Vaio P, we at Sony propose a new lifestyle of taking the PC outdoors; with that, fun and enjoyable PC experience can be brought to the consumers,” said Zhorida Lipayon, marketing officer for Vaio at Sony Philippines.

Dela Cruz said their office has been receiving inquiries from interested buyers who have read or seen about the new pocket PC launched in the US.

Lipayon said in contrast to the netbooks made by other electronics manufacturers, the Vaio P will be marketed as a “pocket-style PC,” but are more geared for the female buyers—considering that it comes in four glossy colors and coordinating carrying case, carrying pouch and wireless laser mouse.

Weighing only 594 grams (or 620 grams with hard disk drive), the Vaio P is actually small enough to slip into a pocket or handbag. In spite of its small dimensions (245x98x120 millimeters), the new Sony PC offers full notebook-level specs: the 8-inch, ultrawide LED-backlit display with 1600x768 resolution (covering much more area than the 1024x600 displays of typical netbooks); a 60-gigabyte (GB) rotating hard drive; an Intel Atom processor Z530 (Z520 for the P13 model); Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity; built-in web cam; noise-canceling in-built technology, to name a few. It supposedly boots up much faster than the typical netbooks currently on sale.

The VGN-P15 model will retail for P69,999 and the VGN-P13 variant will sell for P49,999.

Lipayon said official launch date for the Vaio P is set on February 25 but their office is now entertaining preorders