Sony Continues to Bet Heavily on Digital Imaging, Acquires Toshiba’s CMOS Image Sensor Division

Despite struggling and weighing down heavily on the company, Sony is continuing to support its mobile arm by building a new, wholly-owned smartphone factory. With all the news about mobile and its future within Sony, a story that doesn’t garner enough attention is the company’s amazing rise as a camera powerhouse. With little fanfare, Sony has become the #1 mirrorless camera maker for the last four years, taking away marketshare from rivals Canon and Nikon.

In early 2015, Sony announced an $805 million investment to increase their CMOS image sensor capabilities which has been reaping heavy rewards for their bottom line. In fact, Sony’s CMOS business has been so lucrative for the company that they’ve created a separate drone business in order to show off their camera technology.

With that as the backdrop, Sony has announced that it will acquire Toshiba’s CMOS image sensor business.

While mergers and acquisitions happen all the time, it’s not something that Sony often partakes in. This move, however, has huge implications for Sony and, frankly, their future. While Sony has become the world’s number one mirrorless camera maker, the truth is that camera sales throughout the industry continue to decline. The riches now lie in smartphones and Sony has been an integral part of that. Though not known to most consumers, Sony has helped power Apple’s smartphones since iPhone 4S. (It’s currently unclear if Sony also provides the sensors for the iPhone 6s and 6s+)

With cameras being one of the key driving factors of smartphone upgrades and continued growth of mobile, Sony is able to make huge profits off the continued success of Apple. With the purchase of Toshiba’s CMOS image sensor business, Sony will now be one of the few CMOS manufacturers.

Specifically, Sony will acquire Toshiba’s 300mm wafer fabrication facilities and in doing so, bring over the 1,100 staff members which mostly comprise of engineering and design. Toshiba currently provides CMOS image sensors for Nokia phones which have always been held in high regards for photo taking capabilities. With this move, Sony not only ensures they’ll have another client for their business, but will also be able to diversify their clientele while further scaling that division and in doing so, turn larger profits for the company as a whole.

The two companies are looking to complete the transfer by the end of 31 March 2016.