MEET THE VISIONARIES
MEET THE VISIONARIES Exclusive interview with Kunihiko Sato, President - JVC .../ Cont’d. from page 1 “REACHING EVER HIGHER... LEVEL OF ATTENDEES AT IFA 2007 AT ALL TIME HIGH” How would you describe the current position of JVC in the world market for visual products? Our market share is not very large. We only work in the advanced markets. We do not work in China, Brazil or the Middle-East. We mainly concentrate on the Japanese, US and European markets. But of course the Asian market is where we are going now with countries like Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The predictions for the LCD business in these markets this year are three times the figures of last year. JVC is in the process of going through some upheaval in the ranks. What will this change? Basically, our philosophy remains unchanged. We want to improve the car audio business as well as the camcorder business. We work with Kenwood, our new shareholder with almost 17% of total capital of JVC, but they only have car audio and home audio businesses, that’s why we are going to agree to some collaboration, especially in the car audio and home audio business, but they don’t have a visual business. The supply of LCD panels is apparently getting squeezed at the moment. What are your thoughts on this? Everyone in the supply chain says there is a shortage. Several of the big retailers in Europe try to double or even sometimes triple book, and that’s why demand appears to be so huge, and the panel suppliers say they think there will be a shortage because there are so many orders... therefore manufacturers continue to say ‘we need product’, but I don’t think panel suppliers will have a shortage. JVC outsources its LCD panel production. Is this an advantage? We select our panel suppliers based on the quality and price. Samsung for example has an advantage because they can secure the availability of the panels. But on the other hand if they can’t secure enough supply from their own factory, they would have a big problem. In our case, we are working with three four major panel suppliers such as AUO, LPL and Samsung, that we have chosen mainly because of the quality, but also for the price, but the top criterion is quality. As you can see on our clearmotion drive with the hi-vision products only available with LG panels. But yesterday I talked with the vice president of LG panel manufacturer, and they are very happy with the final products with the very pure picture quality. I think Philips also will start a similar promotion in Autumn, because Philips also have the rights to get the same panels. The panel quality is getting very good, which means that, as we are seeing at IFA, a lot of companies are going towards DESIGN as a differentiator. This is becoming the big thing today. How important is this for JVC? Yes I agree with you. Design is definitely one of the most important aspects of the LCD business, because differences in features and functionality are not very big, but first people are looking at design. Especially, the fact that the housewives actually decide which product looks better, and this makes design even more important. So I think I will have to change our marketing idea... not only quality and design, but also putting more marketing activity such as basic advertising to the market. One of the catchphrases this year at IFA is also lifestyle and art. It’s very important to bring lifestyle and art into the picture... Yes, also I made a speech last night with JVC marketing where I explained we must follow customer lifestyle more and more. We have been concentrating too much on technology as a company. Of course technology is one of the most important assets of JVC, but also we have to focus more on consumer lifestyle products. JVC, with its dual culture and American links should be in a particular position in this sense... Yes. I agree, as you pointed out there is a difference also between Europe and the US, we mainly focus in the European market on technology as well as the brand, but the US market is very different. Hall 5.2 Stand 104 IFA International Editor-in-Chief Richard Barnes interviewing Mr. Kunihiko Sato, President - JVC IFA International • Tuesday, 4 th September 2007 11
