Strengthening of development and cutting of cost

(Oita Godo Newspaper, June 27^th 2010, Morning Paper, Page 8)

The number of Mobile phones manufacturers have been cooperating with rival companies have been increasing. This brings merits to the consumers. Jun is a high school student and his father, Ichiro, is working in a big mobile phone manufacturer.

Jun:  "It seems that Fujitsu and Toshiba is cooperating in the mobile phone business".

Ichiro: "Fujitsu has many unique technologies like finger print recognition technology, and Toshiba has multi function capabilities technologies."

So together, their growth enables high technology mobile phones to be developed. Furthermore, they are able to bear the burden of investing big amounts of money into development.

Jun: "If the manufacturer cost goes down, the end user charge also becomes cheaper, and that the cost of the mobile phone becomes cheaper."

Ichiro: "The money that the end user have to pay will definitely become cheaper, its only a matter of cooperate strategy and a combination of operations. On the other hand, there are 11 companies in the mobile phone manufacturing business and with Fujitsu and Toshiba combined they have 6 companies."

Jun: "Japanese mobile phone manufacturers have high technology, hence if they cooperate, they could be number 1."

Ichiro: "Regarding that, the Japanese mobile phone manufacturer does not have a huge impact on the global market, unlike brands like Nokia and Samsung which has billions of units sold as compared to the domestic brand leader sharp, which only sold about 10,0000,000 units, because sharp only sells in Japan.

Jun: "Why is there such a huge gap?"

Ichiro: "The mobile phone standards in Japan and the world is different, "Galapagos" is used. I-mode and Seg are technologies that have been ship out from Japan to the world. The mobile phone prices in Japan are high and could not compete with the other mobile phone manufacturers overseas."

Jun: "That's dreadful, so what should they do?"

Ichiro: "What they need to do now is to reach to the expanding Chinese market, and capture the market share. It's a good chance for the Japanese mobile manufacturers to expand to international markets. Within this year, the domestic mobile phone manufacturer is going to introduce the next generation of mobile phones "LTE" which confirms with the international standards. It is a mobile phone which is developed in Japan for Japan but has the potential to be sold overseas."

Jun: "But even so, could they win Nokia?"

Ichiro: "It is quite impossible in the near future. But if Japanese mobile phone manufacturer could increase the speed of manufacturing and lower the cost, like America's I Phone, they could stand a chance in the global market."

Jun: "I hope that Japanese mobile phone manufacturer would try their best."

Ichiro: "Have you done your home work? I also hope that Jun will try his best in his homework."

Comments

The mobile phone industry in Japan is very advance, they have high mega pixel camera, brilliant display and cool applications(wallet), but there is one down side to Japanese mobile phones, they are too expensive. They could not compete with the simple design which Nokia has, and I think that it will be hard to compete with Apple's I phone.

But I do think if Japanese mobile phone manufacturers would want to succeed, they must find a niche and expand on it, just like apple, apple combined a internet browser, I pod and a phone all in one device.

I do hope that Japanese mobile phone manufacturer will succeed in future.

Tay Zhong Jie Edwin

Singapore

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, APM 4