News 

Currently the SLR market is dominated by Canon and Nikon while Sony will face tough competition from Pentax and Olympus as it attempts to grab a substantial share of a fast growing and lucrative sector where, despite being the world's second biggest digicam maker, it currently has no presence.

Yutaka Nakagawa, president of Sony's digital imaging business group, said that he believes that the company can grab between 20 and 25 per cent of the market by concentrating on introducing cheaper models than are currently available.

'But because there are few players in this market, I would like to grab an even bigger share than that,' he added, anticipating that ultimately SLRs will account for around 20 per cent of the company's total camera sales.

Nakagawa noted that Sony has several things in its favour, notably its existing audiovisual technologies and the fact that it already produces its own image sensor chips, displays and batteries.