Could be good news for the price-sensitive “pro-sumer” market as they are planning on attacking the field using lower cost mass-market products.

I for one welcome Sony into the market, a bit of healthy competition could drive down prices and encourage innovation. It also confirms what we have been hearing about the Konica news. Apparently Konica have sold 16 million lenses over the years, that ought to be a good head start for Sonys new product. With their electronics and manufacturing capability, marketing expertise and healthy bank balance they should be a force to be reckoned with.

Sony eyes big push into high-end digital cameras – Yahoo! News

Sony Corp. said on Friday it would aim for a quarter of the digital single lens reflex (SLR) camera market after acquiring assets for a push into that market from Konica Minolta Holdings Inc.

Sony is the world’s No. 2 digital camera maker behind Canon Inc. but it currently has no presence in the potentially lucrative digital SLR market.

Canon and Nikon Corp. control the lion’s share of the digital SLR market, but Pentax Corp  and Olympus Corp. have recently formed alliances with electronics makers in a bid to boost their sales.

Yutaka Nakagawa, president of Sony’s digital imaging business group, told reporters the company would aim for 20-25 percent of the fast-growing digital SLR market by focusing on relatively inexpensive models that could achieve mass-market appeal.

“But because there are few players in this market, I would like to grab an even bigger share than that,” he said.

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