Sony has a plan for the inevitable saturation of the smartphone market. CMOS image sensors, which capture light and convert it into electronic signals, can be found in many digital cameras and smartphones today, but by expanding the amount of products that use Sony’s Exmor sensor, the Japanese company believes it can continue to increase profits, Bloomberg reports.
“We have a high sense of crisis after seeing the high-end smartphone market start to saturate this year. Our plan is to draw a growth strategy in an area where we see shipment potential of 10 billion units a year,” said Sony VP Yasuhiro Ueda.
The CMOS market is huge for Sony, as shown by the fact that they generated more than $500 million in additional revenue last year over revenue from 2011. Sony mentioned several of the “growth driver” technologies that it is considering expanding into in the near future, including medical equipment, wearable tech, self-driving cars, hand-gesture TVs, and even house-cleaning robots. They all need CMOS sensors and Sony plans to become their No. 1 supplier.
