Chinese smartphone vendors looking beyond Sony for CMOS image sensor supplies

Chinese smartphone vendors are looking to purchase CMOS image sensors from companies other than Sony, since the Japanese company is short on supply. The main reason according to sources quoted in the Digitimes report is that Sony has given a higher priority to Apple and Samsung Electronics for CMOS image sensor supplies. According to the sources in Taiwan’s handset supply chain, Sony is 30% short of fulfilling its demands for smartphone vendors such as Xiaomi Technology, Huawei Device, Coolpad and ZTE. For second and third tier vendors, the supply shortage is reaching 70-80% . Apart from the established players, China also has a lot of new players entering the market such as LeTV, Gree Electric Appliances and Daren. This will lead to further supply shortage if Chinese handset makers rely only on Sony. As a result of this, vendors are considering purchasing CMOS image sensors from other suppliers such as OmniVision, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba, say sources. There’s also news that China-based venture capital firm, Hua Capital Management has agreed to acquire OmniVision for US$1.9 billion. While Sony’s camera market share is behind its Japanese rivals Canon and Nikon, the company is still making a lot of profits from the sale of image sensors to smartphone as well as camera makers says the Wall Street Journal. According to a market research estimate, in 2014 Sony made around 40.2 per cent of all image sensors. This number is far higher than any of its rivals in this segment. Sony is followed by Omnivision which has a 15.7 per cent share and Samsung which has 15.2 per cent. All other image sensor makers combined account for 28.9 per cent share.