What happened to all Japanese Electronic Giants? All of them are about to collapse!

[somsak]

Ok. Since I got fired from Japanese Company NEC in the past. So I short (financial term Long/Short) on Japan Electronic Industry (Loser mentality here hahaha). Since I was out from NEC 10 years ago, the company was about to bankrupt, even sold her head quater at Tokyo to repay the debt. (You need to retain good employee like me I told you. )


Japan's electronic giants once ruled the world. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp were household names. Now those same companies are in deep trouble, losing billions of dollars a year. How have the mighty Japanese companies fallen so low? The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo looks at what went wrong.
BBC News - What happened to Japan's electronic giants?


Hard-hit electronics giant Sony logs $1.3 billion quarterly loss
Hard-hit electronics giant Sony logs $1.3 billion quarterly loss | Business | DW.DE | 14.05.2014


May be this thread can later join the Japan Economic news.
What happened? Any expert here?

 

[Phukimak]

simple... korea and china win the competition.. the rest is history

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Pretty much, even Japan itself is bound to collapse.

 

[FaujHistorian]

Japanese electronics industry hit the ceiling: mentally and financially.

Chinese and S koreans will hit the same in the next 10 years or so.

Japanese were the leaders and their innovations didn't pan out.

Chinese and S Koreans were followers, so they could afford to copy others mentally and price wise.

On financial side,m Japanese are beholden to their welfare state system, that has made them inefficient in the global competition.

On technical side, they took too long to recognize that new standards like I-Phone and Android will win out and Docomo will loose out.

Japanese next step is perhaps coming soon, when they are allowed to sell high dollar value defense equipment. they were punished after WW-2, and were not allowed to manufacture and sell defense equipment and things that were dual use like aeroplanes.


It is only now that USA is realizing that WW2 sanctions are outdated in the face of Chinese threat.


so wait for things to change in Japanese industry.

Very soon.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Japanese industry hit the ceiling: mentally and financially.

Chinese and S koreans will hit the same in the next 10 years or so.

SK yes, but China no.

 

[FaujHistorian]

SK yes, but China no.

10 years is just figure of speech.

It could be 20 or longer.

you and I both know such things are hard to predict.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

10 years is just figure of speech.

It could be 20 or longer.

you and I both know such things are hard to predict.

Yeah, China with +7.5% of economic growth is going to collapse, while the US with -2.9% of economic growth will remain ok.

Thank you for providing an interesting observation here.

 

[FaujHistorian]

Yeah, China with +7.5% of economic growth is going to collapse, while the US with -2.9% of economic growth will remain ok.

Thank you for providing an interesting opinion here.

Are we starting a war of words here? What's wrong with you.

Read my post bro.

I said, Chinese electronics industry will hit the "ceiling". I have also explained that such ceiling comes from hitting the technical and financial limits.

You unfortunately are turning this into Sino-US war of words.

Not good.

not good at all.

 

[Edison Chen]

In the past, Japanese household appliances was popular in China, but 15 years ago, they are replaced by Chinese domestic brand, not all the market share, but the majority. The same with Japanese laptop, Sony will pull out of PC market.

 

[waz]

Still love Panasonic over other TV brands. Samsung is good as well.

 

[Edison Chen]

Still love Panasonic over other TV brands. Samsung is good as well.

I think Sharp TV> Panasonic TV

 

[waz]

I think Sharp TV> Panasonic TV

Not much of Sharp here (UK). Panasonic is stopping Plasma production and going wholesale into UHD

 

[tranquilium]

The issue is pretty complicated, but essentially it comes down to market niche. As far as electronic market goes, Japan is in a rather awkward spot. For top tier electronic products, Japan, while not necessarily a later comer into the market, is late enough that it doesn't hold some of the key patents. This drove up the cost and make Japanese products not competitive to US products. In middle and lower tier, Japan, being an island nation already at an inherent disadvantage as far as material cost goes. In term of labor, Japan's population is bigger than Vietnam, not nowhere near China. This means as far as labor goes it is not going to out-compete Vietnam because development level and not going to out-compete China simply because economy of scale.

The issue with economy of scale is especially important in newer markets (where patents holds less issue). Japan's smaller domestic market (comparing to China) means its companies is already at an disadvantage. The much larger research base and investment from China also means Japan is losing out the technology race as well. This is, of course, on top of the already existing competition from South Koreans, who has better access to global markets due to political factors.

Pretty any nation can be third or even second rate in a business if they put enough effort into it, but to be the leader (or simply survive if the market competition is severe enough), you need some kind of unique advantage. For example, US has unique advantage in form of patents and first comer advantage. China has unique advantage of enormous economic of scale and heavy political back from the country. Japan lacks such an advantage, thus suffered in the long run.

 

[senheiser]

Sony story has nothing to do with korea or china but everything to do with america. Its since sony lost the console battle against the xbox 360 (now its equal but for long time xbox was leading) sony went into red numbers.

Its because of mainstream american propaganda why everyone went buy an xbox 360 that would break after 1 or 2 month and they clear inferior piece hardware. I can remember when my brother bought one after 1 month dead.

the earlier ps3 was way supirior it would hold like 5 years instead 1 month and it could play ps2 games. America can outprint any company, people should boycott MS and apple.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

Sony story has nothing to do with korea or china but everything to do with america. Its since sony lost the console battle against the xbox 360 (now its equal but for long time xbox was leading) sony went into red numbers.

Its because of mainstream american propaganda why everyone went buy an xbox 360 that would break after 1 or 2 month and they clear inferior piece hardware. I can remember when my brother bought one after 1 month dead.

the earlier ps3 was way supirior it would hold like 5 years instead 1 month and it could play ps2 games. America can outprint any company, people should boycott MS and apple.

Maybe Xbox and its game library are the rightful taste for the American gamers, while the PlayStation is more appealing for the European gamers.

Except Japan, most Chinese and Korean gamers are PC geeks.