Sony Electronics HQs Moving To San Diego
(to be closer to e.Digital)
By Mike Freeman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 20, 2004
Sony Electronics will move its U.S. corporate headquarters from New Jersey to San Diego this year, bulking up the company's already substantial presence in the region.
The Union-Tribune reported in November that San Diego was becoming a nerve center for Sony Electronics as the company consolidated businesses in North America and shifted focus away from its former headquarters in Park Ridge, N.J.
At the time, Dick Komiyama, president and chief operating officer of Sony Electronics since April, declined to say definitively that the company's headquarters were relocating here.
That changed yesterday. "We have been in the San Diego community since 1972, when we first opened a television manufacturing facility in Rancho Bernardo," Komiyama said. "Today, I'm happy to announce Sony Electronics is moving its U.S. headquarters and all of our consumer electronics businesses to San Diego in 2004."
The company began shifting positions to San Diego last fall, and the process is expected to continue through the next few months, company officials said.
Just how many jobs will relocate is unclear, Komiyama said. With its core electronics business slumping last year, Sony Corp. has been in a cost-cutting mode worldwide.
In October, for example, Sony Corp. said it would cut 20,000 jobs over the next three years, including 7,000 in Japan. The company's goal is to trim $3 billion annually from its operating cost and elevate its profit margin from 4 percent today to 10 percent by 2006.
Sony Electronics, a division of Sony Corp., employs about 2,500 in Rancho Bernardo, with jobs ranging from marketing computers to manufacturing television picture tubes.
Not all jobs in Park Ridge will move to San Diego. Some will relocate to San Jose. And Sony Corp. recently offered an early retirement package to workers in its U.S. electronics division.
But even if the headquarters move brings only a few additional jobs, San Diego officials say, it's still significant because of the sheer size and prestigeof Sony Electronics, which posted about $11 billion in sales last year.
"What this shows is that good technology companies are going to go where the talent is," said Kevin Carroll, executive director of the San Diego AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association. "There's a lot of research and development talent in this region."
Komiyama made the announcement yesterday at Petco Park, which Sony will supply with about 800 TVs. They will be throughout the stadium, including more than 200 high-definition sets.
In San Diego, Sony Electronics already makes or markets televisions, Vaio computers, Clie hand-hand computers, digital cameras, digital set-top boxes, camcorders and memory sticks.
Once the headquarters move is complete, it also will market audio products such as Sony Walkman, as well as car audio systems. Administration also will relocate, including Komiyama's office and those of the division's chief financial officer, corporate communications chief and other department heads.
The main business remaining in Park Ridge sells equipment to professional broadcasters, cable networks and production companies.
Last fall, Sony officials said the company hoped to consolidate its 1,600-employee New Jersey operation, now located in five buildings, into one Sony-owned building that holds about 1,000 workers.
Other Sony Corp. divisions in San Diego include Sony Online Entertainment, which makes Web-based computer games, and 989 Sports, which develops console video games. They are not part of Sony Electronics.
