Sony wants supplier priority in conflict with Apple and Samsung

Sony would like to strengthen ties with a quarter of its suppliers to prioritize high-end parts and get products to market faster. With this, the group hopes to better compete with Samsung and Apple.

Sony would annually invest 14 billion euros to purchase parts, but Apple and Samsung would spend more than double, giving them priority in the purchase of high-end parts, writes the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. In an effort to gain a better position, Sony would target 250 of its 1,000 suppliers, in order to source parts from them in higher volumes from now on.

These would be basic components for smartphones, digital cameras and consoles, such as sensors, processors, screens and chips for wireless communication. By sourcing the main group of parts from two or three suppliers, Sony hopes to be on a par with Apple and Samsung. The strategic partnership also includes early involvement of suppliers in product planning, which should also speed up the release of new products. In the past, there have been reports that Apple, for example, had secured a good chunk of the capacity for aluminum housings and IPS screens for tablets, causing competitors to struggle with product planning.

This may include more extensive collaborations with Qualcomm and MediaTek for mobile chips, Murata for ceramic capacitors and AU Optronics for LCDs, Nikkei speculates. In 2008, Sony already reduced the number of suppliers from 2500 to 1000, but that was to reduce costs. Sony, among other things, has divested its Vaio branch of PCs to better target smartphones, tablets, consoles and cameras.