More in our J-ELECTRIC report: http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_electric/
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Category: Japan’s electronics multinationals
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Upbeat on Intel (CNBC TV interview) (Airtime: Tues. Apr. 14 2009)
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Wild differences in operating margins for mobile, TV media groups and electricals
We analyze the effect of the crisis on operating margins in three different sectors in Japan:
(1) electronics,
(2) mobile communications
(3) TV media groups.In sector (1), Nintendo‘s margins are above 30% and increasing despite the crisis, while traditional electronics companies’ margins are evaporating.
(2) for mobile operators DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank margins are 10%-20% and increasing despite the crisis! Could mobile phone usage be crisis resistant?
(3) TV media groups had healthy margins in the 10%-20% range back around 2001- however these margins have been slowly melting away, and TV group margins are heading to cross the zero line into the red zone by 2010-2011. Watch out for a TV media crisis. Read more below.
Consumer electronics sector operating margins:
Nintendo bucks the trend: while Japan’s electronics firms’ margins are dropping into the red, and have never been much higher than 5% during the last 10 years, Nintendo‘s operating margins are above 30% and rising despite the crisis.
Margins of top Japan’s electronics multinationals and Nintendo
(Find full data, fully labeled graphics and analysis in our report on Japan’s electrical companies)Mobile phone sector margins are 10% – 20% and rising despite the crisis.
Mobile phones seem to be resistant to the current crisis. DoCoMo‘s, KDDI‘s and Softbank‘s margins are healthy and improving despite the crisis.
Operating margins of Japan’s top 3 mobile operators
(Find full data, fully labeled graphics and analysis in our JCOMM Report)Margins of TV media groups have been melting away since their peak in 2001.
Back in 2001 Japan’s TV media groups used to enjoy healthy margins of up to 20%. Over the last 8 years these healthy margins have molten away, and Japan’s large TV media groups are likely to all simultaneously go into the red from 2010 onwards, unless dramatic action is taken. Media groups will need to grow profitable new business, e.g. mobile-TV, and other cross-media growth areas.
Could it be that recent anti-takeover measures have made the large TV media groups complacent?
Operating margins of Japan’s TV media groups
(Find full data, fully labeled graphics and analysis in our J-MEDIA Report)Copyright (c) 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Panasonic Warns on Loss (CNBC TV interview) (Airtime: Wed. Feb. 4 2009)
More in our J-ELECTRIC report: http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_electric/
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ICT trends for Japan for 2009
Smartphones, European exits from Japan, and M&A
ICT trends for Japan: Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) remain engaged in Japan’s ICT sector
by Gerhard Fasol
One of the Embassies here in Tokyo asked me to write a report about ICT trends for Japan…
ICT trends for Japan: Mobile phone sector
Pushed by the Government the mobile operators changed the business model for mobile phone sales from a straight subsidy model to an installment payment system. As a consequence the mobile phone sales collapsed, creating huge difficulties for Japan’s mobile phone makers, but greatly improving the financial results of mobile operators.
Smart phones grow market share in Japan
An interesting trend is the growth of the “smart-phone” market (Blackberry, HTC-Windows-Mobile phones, iPhone etc.) and mini-PCs, which can be acquired for YEN 1 with subsidy from eMobile.
In this context the Japanese telecom equipment makers association invited me to give a presentation, which was booked out 2-3 weeks ahead – about 100 Japanese telecom equipment maker managers attended! The General Affairs Vice-Minister / Secretary of State attended…
Nokia terminates mobile phone business in Japan
On November 27th, 2008, global press announcements announced that NOKIA will stop making mobile phones for Japan’s mobile operators with immediate effect. DoCoMo and SoftBank had NOKIA phones in preparation and had already started marketing efforts – these were cancelled a few days after NOKIA’s press announcement.
NOKIA had founded the Japan subsidiary on March 3rd, 1989, almost exactly 20 years ago, thus NOKIA has given up entering Japan’s mobile phone market after 20 years of efforts. NOKIA will not totally shut down in Japan, NOKIA announced that R&D and procurement will continue, and VERTU announced to enter Japan’s market with a mobile vertual network operator (MVNO) model renting network capacity from DoCoMo, and opening own shops.- However the opening of these direct VERTU stores keep being postponed.
NOKIA joins the row of European telecom companies which have given up operations in Japan: Vodafone, Cable & Wireless.
Nokia Siemens Networks (SNS) is continuing business in Japan as well, so NOKIA will not be entirely gone from Japan.
M&A
European company’s acquisitions in Japan are currently at low levels, including the ICT sector. By far the largest acquisition in Japan by a company from the European/Mediterranian area was not by an EU company, but by the Israeli company Iscar which acquired the Japanese company Tungaloy for around US$ 1 Billion. However, this acquisition was driven by US capital. Read details in our blog here.
In the opposite direction, Japanese acquisitions in EU and elsewhere, there is a boom of acquisitions by Japanese companies abroad. For example, TDK acquired the German company EPCOS, Fujitsu acquired the outstanding 1/2 of Fujitsu-Siemens, NTT-Data acquired 72.9% of Cirquent which was a 98% subsidiary of BMW before. SONY acquired the outstanding 1/2 of the SONY-Bertelsmann Music Group from Bertelsmann.
The current trend is definitely a strengthening of Japanese acquisitions in Europe.
The most important issue however are not the acquisition transactions themselves, but the crucial issue will be whether these acquisitions create or destroy value. In many cases the difficulties to overcome “cross-cultural” issues are enormous. Many huge wrecks line the road: Vodafone-Japan, Cable-Wireless-Japan, NOKIA’s mobile phone business in Japan, or DoCoMo’s overseas acquisitions. There are also many success stories – the most impressive and famous one Nissan-Renault, however there are many more. An interesting case in progress is Nippon-Sheet-Glass (now NSG Group)’s acquisition of Pilkington Glass (read about a presentation by NSG’s CEO here in our blog).
Copyright 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Panasonic negotiates to acquire SANYO to form US$ 110 billion group
SANYO suffered from Niigata Chuetsu earthquake of Oct. 23, 2004
Panasonic attracted to SANYO’s battery and energy technologies
On November 7, 2008 Panasonic (“Ideas for Life”) and Sanyo (slogan: “Think GAIA”) announced that they entered negotiations which can potentially lead to an acquisition of Sanyo by Panasonic to form one of the largest electronics groups in the world. Sanyo’s market capitalization is currently US$ 3.9 billion and Panasonic’s is US$ 38 billion, combined sales are about US$ 110 Billion.
The Niigata Chuetsu earthquake of Oct. 23, 2004 caused an estimated total of US$ 30 Billion in damages, damaged Sanyo’s semiconductor factory and contributed to large losses at Sanyo. As a consequence Daiwa Securities SMBC Co, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Goldman Sachs hold preferential shares in Sanyo with voting rights corresponding to 70% of outstanding shares. The current global financial crisis contributes to the potential acquisition, since Daiwa, Sumitomo-Mitsui and especially Goldman Sachs are motivated to sell their preferred shares when contractually possible, and it is also these three financial institutions which will have strong influence on whether this transaction will take place. Goldman Sachs is reported to have said that the price will decide.
Annual revenues of Japan’s electrical groups:
Panasonic and Sanyo combined (red curve in the figure below) will be one of the largest electrical groups globally. Note that Japan’s electrical groups showed strong growth from FY 2003.
Revenues of Japan’s top electronics manufacturers Annual operating margins of Japan’s electrical groups:
Panasonic’s high operating margins helped Panasonic to reach a position of financial strength, enabling this acquisition. Expect more acquisitions by Japanese electrical companies.
Electrical differentiation:
High margin (> 5%) vs low margin (The figure below shows that there is a clear differentiation of Japan’s electrical groups: Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp and Panasonic have high margins – above 5%.
The other electrical groups (Fujitsu, Toshiba, Sanyo, Hitachi, Sony and NEC) have chosen a low-margin path (margins below 4%).
There is a clear gap (4% to 5%) separating these two fields. Panasonic’s margin will suffer with a Sanyo acquisition – expect Panasonic management to bring Sanyo up to Panasonic margins.
Operating margins of Japan’s top electronics manufacturers Globalization of Japan’s electronics groups:
With 36.8% of sales outside Japan, Sanyo is more globalized than Panasonic. NEC, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi Electrical still have much way to go to globalize.
Globalization ratios of Japan’s top electronics manufacturers Read more in our report: “Japan’s electrical companies”
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Apple Nintendo Sony: The power of focus
Lets benchmark three iconic companies:
Apple Nintendo Sony
Apple Nintendo Sony: three iconic companies evolving along very different paths. Apple’s current physical products famously all fit onto a single mid-sized table. Nintendo’s current physical products as well, for SONY you’d need a warehouse.
- APPLE: Wednesday October 22 APPLE announced spectacular full-year results with a year-on-year net income increase of 38%. The results are even better than they look, because iPhone sales and income are spread forward over 2 years due to accounting rules. (See our comments on CNBC here)
- NINTENDO: on August 29, 2008 Nintendo revised the forecast for full-year net income upward by +26.2% (See our comments on CNBC here)
- SONY: in contrast, on October 23, 2008, SONY said that full-year net income (for the financial year ending March 2009) is expected to be 37.5% lower than previously predicted (see our comments on SONY’s 1Q results here on CNBC)
Apple Nintendo Sony – Lets look at today’s market caps:
- APPLE market cap = US$ 85.6 Billion (about 4 x SONY)
- NINTENDO market cap = US$ 37.2 Billion (about 2 x SONY)
- SONY market cap = US$ 19.9 Billion
Apple Nintendo Sony – Why this dramatic difference in market caps? We believe its focus.
Apple and Nintendo are companies with clear focus. Lets look at the details below:
Comparing revenues (sales):
SONY = 3 x APPLE
SONY = 4 x NINTENDO
Annual revenues of Apple, Nintendo and SONY Comparing annual operating income:
APPLE = 3 x SONY
NINTENDO = 3 x SONY
Operating income of Apple, Nintendo and SONY Comparing operating margin:
APPLE = 9 x SONY
NINTENDO = 15 x SONY
Operating margin (operating income as a ratio of revenues) for Apple, Nintendo and SONY Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector
Japan electronics industries – mono zukuri
Copyright (c) 2008-2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Today’s APPLE 4th quarter results vs NINTENDO
A few hours ago (Oct 22, 2008, 6am Tokyo Time) APPLE announced 4th Quarter and Full Year results – we are here updating our comparison between APPLE and NINTENDO. With 6.9 million iPhones sold in APPLE’s 4th Quarter (July + August + September 2008), APPLE has achieved 2.76% market share of all mobile phones globally.
APPLE strongly accelerates lead over NINTENDO in term of sales (see figure below) – even more dramatically, if we take into account that the iPhone in 4th Quarter now accounts for 39% of APPLE’s sales. APPLE accounts for iPhone sales in terms of a subscription model over two years because of free software updates for iPhones. If we would use APPLE’s non-GAAP figures, which book iPhone sales fully at the point of sale, then APPLE’s sales lead over NINTENDO would be even stronger.
In terms of margins we see the opposite trend: NINTENDO‘s lead over APPLE in terms of higher margins expands (see below).
Watch our interview about APPLE’s 4Q results today 11:50am (Tokyo time) on CNBC as a video clip.
Apple accelerated lead over Nintendo in terms of revenues.
Apple’s lead would be more dramatic if correcting for Apple’s subscription model used for iPhone sales according to GAAP rules.
Annual revenues, operating income and net income of Apple vs Nintendo While Apple’s lead over Nintendo in terms of sales is growing, Nintendo’s lead in terms of operating margins is expanding.
Operating margins: Apple vs Nintendo Copyright (c) 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Tech Sector Outlook (CNBC TV interview)
More in our J-ELECTRIC report: http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_electric/
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Games: Nintendo – the winner takes it all
Game industries in total are MUCH bigger than music industries… in Japan game industries are about 10 times bigger business than music industries… Last weekend we had the Tokyo Game Show – read some key points below! From 2006 Japan’s game sector changed dramatically- Nintendo created several paradigm shifts, and “took off”. Read more about Nintendo driven paradigm shifts below. US games giant Electronic Arts (EA) would rank 5th in sales, was EA Japanese. Japan’s games industries are big!
Nintendo income takes off: Nintendo broke the PC-style race for faster machines, and broke out of the limited market of hard core gamers. From FY 2007 Nintendo’s income takes off:
Operating income for Japan’s game companies Nintendo’s DS: braintraining instead of shooting.
SONY’s PSP goes for power, and Nintendo’s DS changed the paradigm + went for lower price. By the way, we see a shift from TV video games to portable and mobile phone games in terms of numbers: for current 7th generation game platforms portables outsell TV video consoles 2:1. DS’s success encouraged Nintendo to develop the Wii.
sales of SONY-PSP vs Nintendo DS in Japan and globally Avoid the dinosaurs:
global sales of Nintendo Wii, SONY Playstation PS3, and Microsoft Xbox-360
“Too many powerful consoles are like ferocious dinosaurs. They might fight and hasten their own exinction” (Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto in an interview). Nintendo’s Wii has much less power, lower screen resolution, and is much cheaper to make and cheaper to buy than PS3 and Xbox360. Nintendo makes money on every Wii sold.
Sales of Nintendo-Wii vs SONY-PSP vs Microsoft XBOX Report: “Nintendo and Japan’s games industries” (9th edition, 181 pages, release October 15, 2008, pdf-file for download):
Eurotechnology report on Nintendo and Japan’s game industry Copyright (c) 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Paradigm change of the global mobile phone business and opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers
Presentation at the CEATEC Conference, talk NT-13, Meeting Room 302, International Conference Hall, Makuhari Messe, Friday October 3, 2008, 11:00-12:00.
See the announcement here [in English] and in Japanese [世界の携帯電話市場のパラダイム変更と日本の携帯電話メーカーのチャンス]
The emergence of iPhone, Android, open-sourcing of Symbian, and the growth of mobile data services are changing the paradigm of the global mobile phone business opening new opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers. Japan’s mobile phone handset makers have missed most opportunities during the first wave of mobile phone opportunities. The developing paradigm change opens new opportunities for Japanese makers. The talk will explain the paradigm shifts and trends of the global mobile phone handset market, and resulting opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers, and will indicate how these opportunities can actually be realized.
Copyright 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Japan electronics industry: Outlook for the Chip Industry (CNBC TV interview)
More in our J-ELECTRIC report: http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_electric/
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Review of Japan Tech Earnings (CNBC TV interview)
More in our J-ELECTRIC report: http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_electric/
Operating margins of Japan’s top electronics manufacturers Copyright (c) 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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Sony Plans LCD TV Expansion
Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector:
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Sony Needs a Hit Product – TV interview
Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector:
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Sony Spotlight (CNBC TV interview)
Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector:
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Sony Needs to Change Its Game (CNBC TV interview)
Read our report on Japan’s electronics industry sector:
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Samsung’s Earnings Beat Forecasts
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L.G. Philips Post Strong Q3 Profits (CNBC TV Interview)
More in our J-ELECTRIC Report
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Gerhard Fasol on CNBC about LENOVO 2007 3rd Quarter financial results
On February 1, 2007, LENOVO announced excellent 3rd Quarter results. I commented live on CNBC-TV. Read comments on LENOVO’s results below.
Watch on youtube:
Comments on LENOVO’s 3Q results
LENOVO (traded on the the Hong Kong stock exchange) for 3Q announced 23% higher profits compared to 3Q one year ago. Revenue increased slightly to US$ 4 billion, making LENOVO a US$ 12 billion/year company. LENOVO is very successful in it’s home market China, where it controls more than 35% of the PC market. While shipments in China rose 17% during the quarter ending Dec 31, 2007, global sales only increased 0.4%, held back mainly by performance problems and falling sales in the Americas. Globally, LENOVO is squeezed between ACER below, which grows much more rapidly (ACER’s growth was 32.4% in 3Q2006 compared to one year ago while LENOVO’s growth was only 10.1%) and Hewlett-Packard and Dell above. While Dell was struggling recently, Michael Dell came back as CEO of Dell, and I expect Dell to improve and become a much more difficult competitor for LENOVO. LENOVO’s challenge is to turn around the US operations, where it is losing ground. To do so, LENOVO will need to strengthen sales to consumer markets, maybe by learning attractive product design by watching APPLE, since competing on price will further hit profits. LENOVO risks to be overtaken globally by ACER.
Comments on LENOVO
LENOVO is more important than it’s size of US$ 12 billion in sales suggests for the following reasons. LENOVO is one of the first Chinese companies developing a global brand and a global business. With China’s growing economic importance on the world stage, if LENOVO manages to turn-round US operations and becomes globally successful, it’s management structure and methods may become a model for other Chinese companies to globalize. It is interesting to compare LENOVO’s relative success after the acquisition of IBM’s PC business with BENQ’s acquisition of SIEMENS-Mobile phones. If LENOVO succeeds to turn-round US operations, LENOVO may become a model case for futher take-overs of Western companies by Chinese companies. LENOVO is owned 27.3% by the Chinese Academy of Science. If LENOVO succeeds and continues to expand it’s success story, financial benefits will flow back to the Chinese Academy of Science, strengthening China’s science base and contributing to China’s further development. LENOVO is also China’s largest domestic mobile phone maker, after recently overtaking Ningbo-Bird. LENOVO sold 2.1 million mobile phone handsets in 3Q2006, a market share of 6.2%, and annual sales on the order of 8 million phones. This number is far below NOKIA’s sales on the order of 350 million phones/year globally, and recently global phone makers have been gaining ground over local makers in China. However, LENOVO does have a chance sometime in the future to become a global mobile phone player in the way SAMSUNG has succeeded.
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Ericsson Strategy & Technology Summit Tokyo
Eurotechnology’s CEO was invited to attend Ericsson’s Strategy & Technology Summit in Tokyo on November 15, 2006.
Ericsson’s CEO, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Ericsson CSO – Chief of Strategy, Japan-CEO Rory Buckley and other Ericsson top management presented Ericsson’s strategy and vision. About 100 investors and investment bank analysts were invited to attend.
I was given the opportunity to share the lunch table with CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg and had a fascinating discussion (some of his comments flowed into our company’s project report to the European Union on benchmarking Japan’s vs EU’s fixed and mobile telecommunications and broadband sectors).
With some of the largest and most advanced mobile investments, Japan’s mobile market is one of the most important markets globally for Ericsson. Recently Ericsson won major contracts from SoftBank and eMobile.
Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg speaking at the Ericsson Technology Summit in Tokyo Copyright (c) 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved
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SHARP pretax profit increases 26%
When BusinessWeek interviewed me for an article about SHARP in October 2004, the journalist interviewing me was very surprised that I was talking to him on a SHARP mobile phone.
While NEC and Matsushita are merging their mobile phone development, SHARP has leveraged the power to make the best displays into market leadership in Japan’s mobile phone market. While NOKIA leads outside Japan, in Japan’s market, NOKIA has a market share of around 0.5% and SHARP is No. 1.
Yesterday (July 25, 2006) SHARP announced quarterly results:
One year-on-year basis, sales for the April-June 2006 quarter have increased 13% to YEN 693.7 Billion (US$ 6 Billion), and revenues from mobile phones have increased 24% to YEN 131.6 Billion (US$ 1.1 Billion). Net profit increased 23% to YEN 23.8 Billion (US$ 0.2 Billion) for the April-June quarter.
SHARP focuses on the high quality top end of the market: while store prices of LCD TV’s have fallen by 30%, SHARP’s prices/unit have only fallen by 4%.
Similar to SONY (Qualia) and TOYOTA (Lexus), SHARP has introduced the new brand AQUOS for high-end liquid crystal displays. AQUOS features prominently in SoftBank’s rebranding campaign for Vodafone’s former Japan subsidiary, which will soon be called SoftBank-Mobile.
SHARP mobile phone Copyright·©2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·
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SANYO – NOKIA CDMA2000 JV (Interview for CNBC)
Was interviewed today about the announced JV between SANYO and Nokia for CDMA2000 phone handsets (I added some corrections here):
[Q1] How will SANYO benefit from this, since they are the ones who have the technology, what do they hope to gain from working with Nokia? Or is this merely a way to reduce costs for the company, since it’s struggling to remain profitable?
It is clear to me that NOKIA will benefit, since NOKIA needs 3G know-how from Japan because all markets where NOKIA is dominating are behind compared to Japan in 3G development, and also NOKIA needs a lot of other advanced technology from SANYO.
Of course who benefits depends both on the contract conditions and the relative strengths of the parties.
It’s clear that financially NOKIA is the much stronger of the two. NOKIA is financially very strong, while SANYO is in a very weak position, so it’s a very clever move for NOKIA.
[Q2] Is it already too late for Nokia to make such a move in the CDMA 2000 market, with strong players like Samsung, LG and Motorola already entrenched in the market?
I don’t think it’s too late – both Motorola and NOKIA demonstrated rebounds recently with new design initiatives such as Motorola’s RAZR and NOKIA did a successsful turn-round by introducing clam-shell phones a trend which NOKIA had missed by not being linked sufficiently into Japan before.
To succeed you need to make spectactular phones which match consumer needs, and you need the financial and manufacturing power as well as the brand. The combination of SANYO‘s technology with NOKIA’s financial strength and brand, as well as NOKIA’s efficient supply chain are a good basis.
[Q3] When would you expect to see the benefits of such a move to emerge?
I think one should not underestimate the cultural risks. NOKIA and SANYO have extremely different corporate cultures, and we have seen many cases where corporate cultures lead to great difficulties.
I think the key will be to manage the difference in corporate cultures of two very proud companies. Locating the JV in the USA might help.
SONY-Ericsson has demonstrated that such a JV can be successful. In the case of SONY-Ericsson it has taken several years for the JV to succeed. If one takes SONY-Ericsson as a measure, then it might take a couple of years (3-4 years) for this JV to succeed. If it’s faster than that it will be a positive surprise.
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About SANYO (CNBC and Wallstreet Journal)
CNBC interview on SANYO (Gerhard Fasol)
Wednesday Nov 16, 2005, I was interviewed live on CBNC’s Asia Market Wrap with Christine Tan about SANYO’s plans to sell it’s financial division. Some of my friends asked me what I sad in this program – so here is my transcript from memory.
Outline of Gerhard Fasol’s interview on CNBC about SANYO
Fundamentally I am very hopeful for SANYO. SANYO has some fantastic technologies and makes many fantastic electronics products. For example, SANYO makes some of the most fantastic mobile phones here in Japan for KDDI, and I heard just today that SANYO phones came top in customer satisfaction in the USA. Mr Kawahara at Kenwood and Mr Ghosn at Nissan and Ripplewood at Shinsei Bank have shown that it is possible to turn round Japanese companies in a very short time. What NISSAN, Ripplewood and Shinsei did, was to concentrate on their essential core business, on their strengths and sell or spin out all non-essential businesses. Nissan used to be in Aerospace and real estate business and lots of other areas which have nothing to do with cars. In the same way, I see much hope for SANYO, if SANYO focusses totally on core strengths and technologies.
On the other hand, we have a corporation here with about US$ 20 billion in sales making US$ 1 billion loss last year and US$ 2 billion loss this year. So we clearly have an unstable situation. SANYO must take drastic action to sell non-essential assets and it’s in this light that SANYO has plans to sell the financial business, which is essentially a general banking operation which is not at all SANYO’s core business and strength.
Christine Tan: “So which business areas do you think SANYO should sell”
GF: I am of course in no position to tell SANYO management what to do, however their steps to sell non-core assets is certainly a good start. Looking at Kenwood, Nissan and Shinsei Bank and many others I can see many examples where excellent management has turned around Japanese companies in a very short time. I am confident that with the right management this can also be done at SANYO.
See also: article in Wallstreet Journal about SANYO
For general background see Gerhard Fasol’s lecture at Stanford University
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Eurotechnology Japan in the press: Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Economist
Eurotechnology Japan KK in the press:
- Bloomberg: Vodafone K.K.’s Tsuda Seeks Growth in Japan, Not Sale
- BusinessWeek: How Sharp Stays On The Cutting Edge. More on SHARP in our report on Japan’s electronics industries
- BusinessWeek: Lasers Are About to Enter Their Blue Period
- BusinessWeek: Vodafone’s Bad Connection In Japan
- The Economist: Vodafone – not so big in Japan
Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·
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PENCK (KDDI-AU Designer Series)
KDDI/AU Designer Series Model PENCK
designed by Makoto Saito Design Office Inc.
Today, February 18, KDDI-AU introduced PENCK – the latest model in the Designer Series, designed by Makoto Saito Design Office Inc.:
Designer: Makoto Saito Design Office Inc.
Data rate = 2.4 Mbps
Music = Chaku-Uta-Full, stereo speakers
Camera = 1.24 Megapixel, incl QR barcode reader
GPS = incl. Naviwalk navigation
and more…When I was asked to brief the President of Germany, Horst Koehler, on Japan’s technology sector, KDDI kindly loaned me PENCK-phones, which I used in one of the demonstrations for President Koehler of Japan’s mobile phone industry.
PENCK phone by Makoto Saito Design Office for KDDI designer series 
PENCK phone by Makoto Saito Design Office for KDDI designer series Japan telecommunications industry report
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Briefing about Japan’s high-technology business world for Mme Nicole Fontaine
Briefing about Japan’s high-technology business sector for Mme Nicole Fontaine, Vice-Minister for Industry of France
Tokyo, Friday, September 20, 2002, at the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Japan.
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Masaru Ibuka, Founder of SONY, Obituary for NATURE
Masaru Ibuka obituary in NATURE by Gerhard Fasol
After Masaru Ibuka (井深大) died on December 19, 1997, NATURE asked me to write an obituary about Masaru Ibuka, which was published in Nature on February 26, 1998, and you can download the article as a pdf-file here. The reference is: Gerhard Fasol, “Obituary: Masaru Ibuka (1908-97)”, Nature 391, p. 848 (26 February 1998).
Masaru Ibuka obituary in NATURE by Gerhard Fasol – the background
I used several weeks of my spare time to research and write this obituary. For example, I worked to reach and talk with several people who had met Ibuka in person, since I had never personally met Ibuka. As another example: General McArthur’s Government of Japan wanted to communicate with the population of Japan via radio, however, radio receiver production in Japan was very inefficient at that time due to quality problems, leading to very low yield. So General McArthur’s Government brought Quality experts Homer Sarasohn and Charles Protzmann to Japan to teach classes in quality management. I found out that Ibuka was a keen student of these quality classes. To understand this better, I phoned with a retired officer of General McArthur’s Government, and I also found relatives of Homer Sarasohn, who very kindly gave me a lot of information about Homer Sarasohn’s work in teaching quality management in Japan.
Debunking some myths about SONY and Masaru Ibuka
Interestingly, there is a lot of misunderstandings and myths around SONY, some of which I clarified in the Nature obituary for Masaru Ibuka.
Myth: Akio Morita is the founder of SONY
Reality: SONY was founded as Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyusho (the Tokyo Communications Laboratory) by Masaru Ibuka and by Akio Morita, who are the two co-founders of Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyusho, the company name was later changed to SONY.
Myth in Japan: Many people in Japan think that SONY is an American company
Reality: SONY is a Japanese company with headquarters in Tokyo-Shinagawa. The reason why many people think that SONY is an American company, is that SONY’s company name and brand name in Japan is written in Katakana, while traditional Japanese companies always write their company in Chinese characters (Kanji). (Note however, that Nissan President Carlos Ghosn, says that companies have no nationality).
Myth: Nobel Prize winner Leo Esaki discovered the tunnel diode, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize, at IBM
Reality: Leo Esaki discovered the tunnel diode as a researcher at Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyusho, which later changed the company name to SONY. Leo Esaki then moved to IBM Yorktown Heights R&D labs, and was awarded the Nobel Prize while working at IBM for his discovery of the tunnel diode, which he discovered while working at Tokyo Tsushin Kenkyusho.
Read more about today’s SONY:
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