Sony strengthens strategy for Vaio brand
Valor Econômico - 07/15/2008
Excited by the growth of the notebook market in Brazil, Sony has strengthened its efforts to stimulate sales in the national market of its Vaio brand, created in 1996 to cover the portable computers developed by the Japanese company. Pedro LaFarga, Vaio's Vice-President for Latin America and Canada, came to São Paulo to personally launch a new family of products - launch which is taking place all over world this week. From those three new models, one will have national production. Vaio arrived in Brazil in the end of 2006 and, since then, the country achieved the second place in the ranking of the largest markets of the brand in Latin America. "We hope to equal the Brazilian sales to Mexico's [first in the ranking] in a near future", declares the executive, without providing further details. The growth potential in Brazil, says LaFarga, is huge. According to estimates of the IDC consulting company, the Brazilian market of notebooks would double its size in 2008, to a total of 3.1 million units sold. In 2007, 1.5 million portable computers were sold, which means a total of 15 notebooks per every 100 computers bought in the country. "Countries like Germany and the United States grow at 20% rates. On their turn, Mexico and Chile, for example, grow at 40% ", says the executive. "Brazil presents the greatest growth in this segment in the world." LaFarga declares Vaio will also present growth at three-digit rate this year. "We expect the brand to grow four times its size in 2008", he says. For 2009, the forecast is to grow three times the size of the operation compared to this year. In order to face the competitive notebook market in the country, Vaio has increased its product portfolio. Positioned as a sophisticated brand in the segment of portable computers - a niche Vaio competes with HP and Dell - the company has also offered consumers more price options. Today, one can find Vaio products from R$ 2.2 thousand (US$ 1.38 thousand) to R$ 10 thousand (US$ 6.25 thousand). Sony's bet in Brazil is so significant that, in the end of last year, the company entered into an agreement to manufacture some Vaio models in Jundiaí, at the Foxconn plant. This production agreement, which aims at supplying the domestic market, is the only Sony has in Latin America for the Vaio brand.