Sony sold the battery to the new air outlet

In a few years, Sony has continued to reorganize its business and continuously transfer non-core and underperforming businesses. Today, Sony has sold the "elderly" business - lithium battery business, the lithium battery business to Murata Manufacturing, 1991, the world's first lithium-ion battery, but Sony began commercialization. At the same time, this transaction involves part of China's business.

The two parties have reached a non-binding memorandum of understanding confirming the intention of the two parties to negotiate on the transfer of the Sony Group battery business to the Murata Group. The parties are expected to sign a binding final agreement in mid-October 2016 and will complete the transfer by the end of March 2017.

The preliminary agreement did not specify the specific acquisition funds, and the scope of the transfer is still pending. However, before March next year, Murata will control Sony's five lithium battery factories, including factories in China, Singapore and Japan.

However, the lithium battery business is not all sold Sony will retain a small portion of the battery business. Customer operations related to Sony branded USB battery sales, alkaline batteries, button and coin batteries, portable projectors and other products will not be transferred.

The past and present of Sony battery

Sony is definitely the originator of lithium batteries. In 1975, Sony's subsidiary Sony EnergyDevices began to operate the battery business; in 1991, Sony produced the world's first rechargeable, commercially available lithium battery, and began a new era.

Subsequently, lithium polymer batteries became the focus of Sony. However, the research and development of lithium polymer batteries is not very smooth, the growth rate is slow, and the technology is close to the limitation, which has become the bottleneck of the technology industry. After Panasonic acquired Sanyo Electronics, Sony's battery business began to decline rapidly.

Originally, Sony has always believed that the growth in demand for smartphone batteries in the market will help the recovery of the lithium battery business, but it seems that the situation has not improved.

In addition, Sony plans to participate in the automotive lithium-ion battery business in 2015, and plans to build a new lithium-ion battery electrode in 2011, but it is scheduled to be discontinued in 2012. In 2014, Sony entered the military lithium-ion vehicle battery.

Even if Sony adjusted the layout several times, it was still losing money. In April of this year, Sony’s financial report from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016, the loss of components business of the battery business amounted to 253 million US dollars. In the financial statements just released from April 1, 2016 to June 30, 2016, the loss was further expanded to 469 million US dollars.

As early as May of this year, there were reports that Sony may continue to divest non-core assets to revive consumer electronics products, and said that three investment banks have contacted Sony to help them sell their battery business. Potential buyers may include Hon Hai and BYD.

The sale of lithium battery business by Sony will involve a part of China's business. There is no news yet, whether there will be layoffs in the Sony lithium battery factory in China.

Sony sold the battery to the new air outlet

When Tesla's success gradually emerged, countless manufacturers began to try to get involved in the field of new energy vehicles. It is reported that after the transfer, Murata plans to operate the battery business as the core of its energy business to further realize the growth and expansion of its business. The automotive and new energy sectors have always been in the business direction of Murata's development strategy.

At the same time, in the three-year (FY2015 to FY2017) medium-term plan announced by Sony CEO Hirai Kazuo on June 29 this year, Sony's future key businesses include: component business, game and network service business, film and music business, financial services.

According to some data, Sony has separately divided the image sensor and camera module business from the component business to form the semiconductor business unit in the first quarter of 2016 financial report released on July 29.

It can be seen that the sale of the lithium electronic business in a loss state, if Sony throws away the burden, the strategy of lightly and succinctly investing in the next vent, concentrate resources and energy on the pillar business and future emerging business.

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