Sony considering selling its camera sensor division despite market dominance over Samsung and OmniVision

In recent years, one may be forgiven for thinking that Samsung and OmniVision go toe-to-toe with Sony when it comes to the camera sensor market. For example, modern flagships source sensors from all three manufacturers, with the ISOCELL HP9 currently being the telephoto sensor of choice for Vivo and Xiaomi.

Likewise, Honor is rumoured to have turned to OmniVision for the primary camera inside the Magic8 Pro. Meanwhile, Apple typically turns to Sony for its iPhone camera sensors, including those found in the iPhone 16 Pro Max (curr. $1,091 - refurbished on Amazon). 

However, Sony continues to dominate the camera sensor industry thanks to around 45% market share. By contrast, Samsung and OmniVision line up in distant second and third place with 19% and 11% market shares, respectively. In financial terms, Sony's camera sensor division is estimated to be worth between $35 billion and $49 billion (JPY 5-7 trillion) at current exchanges.

Nonetheless, Bloomberg now reports that Sony is looking to jettison its camera sensor division. Citing a profit margin drop from 25% to 10% in recent years, Bloomberg claims Sony would take the division public as Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp before eventually retaining only a minority stake in the company.

Apparently, Sony executives have not finalised a plan yet, though. Instead, the economic instability and uncertainty caused by ongoing United States tariffs could force the company to shelve its spin-off plans for the time being. Regardless, we would expect to hear confirmation either way later this year.