TV market boom in Japan

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 32

TV market boom in Japan

Reprinted from The "Economist,” London Tokyo Japan’s consumerelectronics firms are expecting a brighter future for the colour television market. Colour television sets are already in most homes in rich countries, and price competition is fierce for small, second sets. So it is video-tape recorders that have been making money for the firms in the last few years. Now, making televisions looks tempting again. The most bullish of the Japanese television firms is Victor Company of Japan (JVC). In the year to March,

1984, its sales of televisions rose 20 per cent to 54 billion yen (SNZ364M), after falling by 6.4 per cent the previous year, and rising only 4.5 per cent in 1982. In 1980 televisions made up nearly 20 per cent of JVC’s sales, a share that had halved to 9 per cent by 1983. That share is now recovering. This year the company expects its television sales to grow by 21 per cent, faster even than the 13 per cent rise it expects for video equipment sales. The growth in JVC’s television sales is from a smaller base than some Japanese companies. Bigger rivals expect healthy growth, too, however. Matsushita, the world’s biggest

consumer-electronics maker, which also owns half of JVC, expects its television sales to grow by 9 per cent this year. Toshiba expects domestic television production to rise by 7 per cent. (Many of Toshiba’s faster growing markets are overseas, where it has local production.) Sony, which gets 24 per cent of its sales from televisions, says only that it is expecting accelerating growth, too. With total Japanese television output fairly stable (12.8 M sets last year), why should growth be picking up? Competition for sales of sets with screens of 14 inches or less is fiercer, especially from South Korean, Taiwanese and, soon, Chinese factories.

Even Japan’s watch makers are getting in on the act. Seiko recently announced a colour-television set with a 2in screen. It will be a competitor to Sony’s monochrome Watchman, which has so far sold more than 150,000 world wide. While they are waiting for high-definition broadcasting, television makers are developing upmarket digital televisions. These take ordinary television signals, remove that fuzz and enhance the picture, as well as offering gimickry such as being able to freeze a frame. Later this year Matsushita plans to start selling a digitalised set with which the user can watch two channels at once, keeping one displayed in a small window in the main picture. It will cost about 20 per cent more than ordinary sets, says the firm. Copyright — The Economist.