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Sony Can’t Make Image Sensors Fast Enough to Keep Up With Demand

  • Dominant mobile camera chip maker has enviable demand problem
  • Apologizing to customers ‘because we just can’t make enough’
Bloomberg business news
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Sony Corp. is working around the clock to manufacture its in-demand image sensors, but even a 24-hour operation hasn’t been enough.

For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of Sony’s semiconductor unit. The electronics giant is more than doubling its capital spending on the business to 280 billion yen ($2.6 billion) this fiscal year and is also building a new plant in Nagasaki that will come online in April 2021.