Sony expects China to become its second biggest market

Sony Corp. officials said they expect that China will in the next few years surpass Japan and become the technology company's second largest market, after the United States, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer and acting chairman of Sony China Ltd., Shizuo Takashino, said they hope for the company's China operations to eventually have a Chinese management team to oversee its seven factories and all of its business in the country.

At a ceremony to unveil Sony Corp.'s new ExploraScience museum in Beijing, executives didn't address questions about the recent recall of millions of defective laptop batteries, says The Wall Street Journal. Stringer deferred the question to a company spokesman.

In addition to opening its new Chaoyang Park science museum, which features exhibits of Sony's latest technology, the company also plans to unify its brand by bringing together its film, electronics and entertainment businesses, which, at the moment, appear fragmented to Chinese consumers, Stringer said.

Going forward, he expects to continue making products tailored specifically to Chinese consumers, the first of which was the Walkman P series, or a music player that displays Chinese lyrics and photos on its screen and comes with a voice recorder, says The Wall Street Journal.

In coming months, Sony will also launch its slimmest liquid-crystal-display television exclusively in China, reports The Wall Street Journal. The 16-millimeter thick TV is optimized to be hung on a wall because surveys found that the vast majority of Chinese consumers prefer to display their televisions that way.