Greece

Balafoutas has been with Sony Hellas since it was founded in 1992. The first person hired by the company as an administration financial manager, he is familiar with all aspects of the company and has helped it grow over the years. He was promoted to product manager and eventually took over as managing director of the company when the founding director moved back to Japan in 1996. For the past six years, Balafoutas has led Sony's current success in Greece.

Sony Hellas currently has 42 percent of the market in the country - more than twice the average market share of 20 percent held by Sony in the rest of Europe. The ubiquitous brand has the number one selling product in Greece in every category of its product line. In a relatively small country of 11 million people, Sony Hellas manages to produce the highest amount of turnover the multinational corporation's operations in Europe.
Costas Balafoutas, managing director of Sony Hellas

Balafoutas explained that the Greek consumers prefer premium products of high quality from well-established brand names. This has worked to the benefit of the company since the beginning.

The focus for Sony Hellas now is to continue expanding its market, where there is still room for growth. Many Sony products that have not been introduced to Greece, such as the Vaio computer. With a Greek computer industry which is not yet fully developed, Sony Hellas expects the introduction of Vaio notebook computers to be a big success.

The company is also expanding in different areas. Sony is evolving to become a leading broadband network company in the 21st century, through its music, film, gaming and online businesses. Much of the research and develop for this project will take place in Europe.

Sony Hellas is recognized by Sony headquarters as one of the best-performing Sony sales companies in the world. It has developed a distribution channel that is well established in all areas of Greece and Cyprus.

Cyprus represents 10 percent of its market, and it is growing at a faster rate than the Greek market. Balafoutas envisions one day extending distribution to the Balkan region as well, as many multinational companies approach the Balkan region through Greece.

While the Balkan region is currently managed by Sony's Hungary division, Balafoutas is on the European Board of Directors for Sony Europe and is helping improve operations in this region.

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