Japanese electronics makers struggle

It is clear that Japanese home electronics manufacturers, once champions in the industry now far behind their foreign rivals, as Sharp Corp., Panasonic Corp. and Sony Corp. huge after-tax losses in their settlements half a year from September 2012 account included.

The three companies after-tax losses amounted to more than 1.1 trillion yen.

In all three companies, were appointed new Presidents this fiscal year; in each case they carried out necessary reforms, especially streamlining of TV production companies, which had been the main cause of the losses.

But the companies have not found a profitable new business to replace TV production and gaps with foreign rivals, which have gone on the offence by expanding their business scale, still expand.

Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga said Wednesday at a press conference for announcing the operating results, "We shift the focus of sales scale to profitability and reconstruct of our companies."

He is a known intention to stop the past business strategies.

Under their respective new leaders, the three companies have made various structural reforms, but still cannot be said that the residue of their past failures have cleaned up.

Panasonic acquired Sanyo Electric Co.-activities, including the production of solar power generation panels and lithium-ion batteries, for about 670 billion yen.

These companies are not profitable, and it cannot be denied that the delay in the streamlining of such loss-making projects Panasonic performance deteriorated.

Marker in the settlement of the consolidated accounts from March 2013, Panasonic forecasts that it will incur more than 700 billion yen in after-tax losses, a second consecutive year of losses.

Panasonic plans to the management resources shift on apparatus for housewives and environmental-related products.

But frankly admitted Tsuga, "We don't have growth-drivers that the TV production company replaced can."

Sharp President Takashi Okuda said at a press conference Thursday in Tokyo: "Although we large-scale investments in liquid-crystal displays have created, its business circumstances changed. If our company had taken earlier measures, the situation would have been different. "

Okuda presented during the press conference that a forecast Sharp probably the largest ever after-tax loss from March 2013.

In say, allowed Okuda concentrated investment in the LCD TV production in the past was a failure.

Along with the deterioration of corporate performance, has Sharp deprived 61 billion yen are deferred tax assets which was reserved on the presumption that the company would record a profit.

Sharp wants to pour in more energy production of small and medium-sized LCD panels as income pillar that can replace LCD TV production. The LCD panels are used in personal computers and mobile devices.

With her IGZO, a model of LCD panel that consumes much less power, as the main weapon, will Sharp try to repair of its activities.

Sharp wants to get contracts can large numbers of the panels for products such as Apple Inc's iPhone and ultra-thin PCs developed under the initiative of Intel Corp., a major semiconductor manufacturer of the United States.

However, as we have seen with the long delays in the delivery of products to Apple, the technologies for the production of the IGZO panels cannot be said to be stable.

Competition in the field with South Korea and Taiwan rivals is also fierce.

Okuda expressed concern, saying: "the biggest task is to improve the operation of our plant Kameyama No. 2 [in Kameyama, Mie Prefecture]." The plant produces the IGZO panels.

Sony Corp's loss in TV production was smaller, but her Department of audiovisual products made 15.8 billion yen in operating loss.

Sony aims for the reconstruction of its activities, mainly deals with business customers by, for example, strengthening of medical equipment companies through equity and business partnership with Olympus Corp.

Among big electronics manufacturers, some companies quickly implemented structural reforms after recording huge losses.

For example, Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. reduced their TV and mobile phone manufacturing companies.

The companies registered solid results in the latest period, in sharp contrast with the three companies currently in the red.

Panasonic and Sharp would eliminate all negative factors after their recent losses.

However, economic analyst said while the global economy slows, "the companies may be forced to deal with losses again."

The companies have a long way to go to blow their inheritances.

Whole industry surpassed

Japanese consumer electronics companies have sustained their us and South Korean rivals in the development of smartphones and cutting-edge displays.

While many domestic manufacturers are affected by major setbacks recently, Apple Inc. of the United States and Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea all-time sales records in the quarter from the July-September posted.

A tenacious high yen hover around 80 yen per dollar also contributed to the problems of Japanese electronics makers.

Apple and Samsung owns about half of the still growing global smartphone market, with both companies get a boost recently from new releases of popular models--Apple with its iPhone 5 and the roll-out of the Galaxy S3 Samsung.

Meanwhile, NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Corp. does not track in the race to develop products for the global market. Problems in this area makes it difficult to regain footing, said an Executive at a domestic manufacturer.

The large market shares held by Apple and other foreign electronics companies let high-tech parts at low prices, Japanese manufacturers left in the dust in terms of attractiveness of the product.

When the major American semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm fell behind schedule in shipments this summer, putting the Japanese companies to share on low priority, arrivals late.

Japanese companies have continued to suffer in the flat-screen television business, with South Korean companies such as Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. dominates the market.

South Korean companies also have the lead in the development of new products, such as organic electro-luminescence displays, which is seen as the next-generation technology for TV screens.

According to the Ministry of economy, trade and industry, electronics industry shipments year amount to about 33.5 trillion yen, provides about 10 percent of all shipments of domestic production, and the sector about 807,000 jobs.

In addition to the auto industry, electronics is seen as an important national industry and its success or failure is probably a great influence on the fate of the Japanese economy will have.

US $ 1 = 80 yen