Less than four years after announcing a partnership that would see Bosch take over the sales and marketing of Sony-branded cameras in every market except Japan, the two companies on Thursday said that they had decided to end their collaboration.
A spokesperson for Bosch said that the company would continue to distribute Sony-branded video security products until December 2020, after which the sales cooperation agreement will be terminated. No other products will be distributed by Bosch following the end of the partnership except for one multi-sensor camera model, the spokesperson added.
According to Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security at research firm Frost & Sullivan, this move could signal the end for Sony in the North American market.
“While I can see Sony maintaining or opening new distribution channels through integrators, creating its own localized sales force in North America is more than likely out of the question, with or without the impacts of COVID-19 on the industry,” VanZandt said.
“Business-wise, this could be the best decision for Sony to allow them to re-align their product portfolio and decide which industry they can really perform best in–the security market or in consumer electronics. Given the focus the company has given in the last few years on the consumer electronics side, the decision to slowly exit the market may be the best way for the company to re-focus their solution offerings.”
Perhaps one of the biggest missteps by Sony in the market, according to VanZandt, was the company’s lack of focus on providing features above and beyond image quality. “While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory,” she added. “Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”
