For those of you watching Sony- here's the transcript of the recent earnings call.
Let me pull out some interesting parts (as far as I am concerned.)
A - Takao Yuhara [Sony executive]
Geographical breakdown of the PS2 in the third quarter, the total shipment was, the 5,360,000 with which in the Japan its 1.13 million and in North America 2.21 million and lastly in Europe it is 2.02 million. So that is, the Playstation 2. On PSP, in the third quarter, total shipments quantity was 1.2 million, sorry, this is of course 9 months, 622 seldom period. Asia 6.2 million, in Japan 1.35 million and in North America 1.68 million and in the Europe is 1.2 million. That is a geographical distribution of this, of Playstation portables.
But, as we all know, Nintendo DS is kicking everyone's ass in handheld platforms.
Q - Paul Smith
Okay thank you very much for that and congratulations on, on that improvement, the other area which again was supposed to surprise, which I’m not sure I understand is the, the walkman side, MD revenues, because I understand that the revenues were flat year-on-year, can you explain the, how do you see, and maintaining business in Walkman?
A - Takao Yuhara [Sony executive]
You mean that the Walkman, these are how our A-series to purchase, how this can approximately or the, MD and CD Walkman?
Q - Paul Smith
MVCD products.
A - Takao Yuhara [Sony executive]
This, the, MD or CD walkman in this, particular third quarter, the sales was almost falt [flat] compared to the, rest of the year then again that we did make good quarter reduction efforts, the couple of revisions that favor growth, the current situation and then we could increase up the operating profit of this, the walkman compared to the last year.
Q - Paul Smith
I understand that you introduced new product in, in Japan and Europe but I’m not quite sure, why that it was this popular or I think in the absence of new products one would have expect to the big decline in that area?
A - Takao Yuhara [Sony executive]
Mr. Smith, actually within the audio segments, I think sales are more or less flat I don’t have to take them in front of me for the entire segment. But I think quite of that sales have been for CD and MD walkman, quite substantially. They shrunk by about half in fact, since the previous year. We all think…
A - Jonathan Bates [Sony investor relations]
Slightly positive results from the A-series walkmans in Japan, they have 20%, 25% of the market share.
A - Takao Yuhara [Sony executive]
But, of course, they have a pretty dominant share. In the UK, we have gained around 20%. I should also comment that the, the technology that we use in our, in our high definition flash walkman is, they have a very long life time actually about for very long time, they also use organic video screen, which keeps the kind of, the design of the walkman to kind of futuristic kind of sale. Obviously, there was room for improvement but we have got, a small kind of, of that what takes around 20% in the market in, in the UK and Japan, I hope I that helps or answer your question.
No one at Sony wants to talk about the mess at Connect.
The Japan Stock Blog � Sony F3Q05 (Qtr Ending Dec 31, 2005) Earnings Conference Call Transcript (SNE)
"But, of course, they have a pretty dominant share. In the UK, we have gained around 20%."
Is 20% dominant?
To be honest, I have no friggin' idea what that Yuhara is talking about. His sentences are conjured so.... unsmooth, to say the least.