Author: Quiet Thought

Shirakawa Kaede, who had been in the United States for almost two months at the end of July, finally returned to the land of neon again.

"Shirakawa, here~"

As soon as he left the airport hall, Shirakawa Kaede saw Kobayashi Asuka wearing a light-colored long skirt waving to him.

"Tsk, it's a great honor for Kobayashi to pick him up in person."

Shirakawa Kaede greeted her from a distance, and then, without hesitation, sat directly into her co-pilot.

As for the followers Kojima and Sama put their luggage, they quietly got into another car behind them.

"Go to Shirakawa Electrical Appliances or go home?" Kobayashi Asuka smiled and was too lazy to pay attention to him.

Sometimes this guy just owes his mouth and can't even get rid of him easily.

But ignore him, it seems that I always feel that something is missing.

"Go to Shirakawa Electric."

Shirakawa Kaede's thoughts are not as complicated as Kobayashi Asuka. He was not in Neon for two months, and a lot of things are piled up here.

He had already slept on the plane and didn't have to fall off the jet lag.

As for Matsuda Seiko who had lived with him in North America before, she had already returned on a flight yesterday.

As a time management master, this itinerary cannot defeat him at all.

"How is it, is everything going well in the United States?"

Kobayashi Asuka started the car while chatting with him about the gains this time.

"Overall, it's still going well." Shirakawa Kaede stretched and relaxed.

First of all, Shirakawa Electric's new generation of Walkman was successfully launched, and the feedback in the North American market was quite good.

If nothing unexpected happens, before Sony doesn't launch a higher-end model.

Shirakawa Electric's Walkman will occupy the mainstream share in the high-end market.

As long as we continue to launch innovative products and use technology as the driving force, Shirakawa Electric will not stop moving forward.

At the same time, in the low-end field, FM-02 swept the market with an ultra-low pricing of $63.

Aihua, who was promoting at a low price, fell into silence after encountering this opponent.

If nothing unexpected happens, Aihua should soon disappear in North America.

In addition to its performance in the market, Shirakawa Electric is also officially signing an agreement with the local government of Auckland.

Shirakawa Electric is expected to invest US$30 million in the next two years to build a walkman factory with a scale of 1,000 people in the local area.

Construction is planned to start this year and be officially put into production next year. In the future, this Auckland factory will supply most of the Walkman demand in the North American market.

Although the manufacturing cost has increased, at least it has saved a tariff. In addition, building a local factory will save a lot of unnecessary trouble in the future.

Europe has sent people to take the lead to strive to gain a preliminary foothold this year.

Most of the overseas affairs have been completed, and he will not have to fly over in a short period of time.

Back in Oita District, Shirakawa Kaede began to check the performance of the local walkman business.

Although the overall financial statements for July have not yet been released, the clues can be seen based on the statistics in the previous few weeks.

With the arrival of summer vacation, the launch of the new generation of Walkman in Shirakawa Electric has also ushered in a sales boom.

Especially the low-end models, the ultra-low price of just over 10,000 yen has attracted countless students to buy it.

This price is quite low in all products in the entire consumer electronics field.

Most students can basically buy an FM-02 by getting pocket money. The Walkman I envied before is now within reach, so what else can I hesitate about?

FM-02 has now almost become a standard for students, and everyone has one.

Students can be seen wearing earphones and holding FM-02s everywhere on campus.

Rich color schemes and mini cute style designs are the new favorites of students.

There is no doubt that with the launch of FM-02, Shirakawa Electric has once again occupied the absolute mainstream in the low-end market.

And as prices leaps and bounds fall, the consumer group has further expanded.

This is equivalent to making the cake bigger, and then the extra part is eaten by Shirakawa Electric in one bite.

Panasonic Electric, which previously put pressure on Shirakawa Electric, is no longer regarded as a threat by Shirakawa Kai.

He knew that the lowest price of Walkman was almost here and there would be no change in the next few years.

This time, the price of more than 10,000 yen has almost compressed the cost of Walkman to the limit.

When the price bottoms out and there is no room for price reduction, everyone's bottom line will be clearly shown.

Even if Panasonic continues to follow up, as long as it does not have much price advantage.

Shirakawa Electric Appliances, which takes the lead, will definitely be the mainstream of the market.

I have to say that Shirakawa Electric's ultra-low pricing this time is a bit unethical.

In the past, everyone competed in the market, even in price wars.

It is also constantly adjusting and slowly falling into the price range.

After all, capital is profit-seeking, and everyone wants to make money.

To ensure as much profit margin as possible is the tacit way for each other.

However, Shirakawa Electric directly set a price for jumping off the property at one time. How can other players who have just entered the market or are on the way to enter the market?

Of course, Shirakawa Kaede did this on purpose, not that he wanted to do charity and did not want profit margins.

However, as more and more audio equipment manufacturers have entered the market in recent months, Shirakawa Electric's market share has also become lower and lower.

Instead of waiting for everyone to slowly erode their market share, we should stop taking ruthless measures.

I would rather take less profit than clean up the smoky Walkman market.

The models that other manufacturers have just released, or projects that are developing against Shirakawa Electric's previous generation low-end machines, have all suffered a devastating blow.

The best example of this is Aihua. The new model failed after being sold for two months, and the loss was huge.

In Shirakawa Kaede's view, Panasonic is the only one who can compete with him in the low-end market.

The other party also has a complete industrial chain and has unique advantages in cost.

However, it is now the second half of the year, and it is likely that next year will be next.

Shirakawa Kaede finally relaxed with the data form in his hand.

Aihua and Pioneer are no longer worth worrying about, and the future Walkman market is likely to be the world of big manufacturers.

Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, NEC, and including its own Shirakawa Electric Appliances, there are probably only a few of them.

To be honest, the first two are really taken seriously by Shirakawa. Sony has the strongest technical strength in the audio field, so there is no need to say more about this.

Shirakawa Electric only barely kept up with it with its leading design, otherwise the result would be really hard to say.

This is because the technology is not enough, so creativity is what we can make up for.

As for Panasonic, as I just said, its complete industrial chain has unique advantages in manufacturing costs.

Perhaps in the future, the most unlikely person to be eliminated in the Walkman market is Panasonic.

Although the market share may be limited, as long as the price is low enough, you can survive.

If Sony and Shirakawa Electric are technology-driven companies, then Panasonic is marketing-driven companies.

This is because there is not enough technical creativity, so I can make it up at a low price.

The remaining two Hitachi and NEC are too complicated, and audio is not their strengths.

In fact, Panasonic has a variety of things, but Panasonic has a complete electronics industry chain.

The industrial chains of Hitachi and NEC are not in the consumer electronics field. The former's main profit pillars are in the industrial field (electricity industry, machinery industry, semiconductor industry), while the latter's pillar industries are communications and semiconductors.

At the same time, these giant groups are complex and the Walkman business is not even attracted attention at all.

So in general, in the field of audio consumer goods, Shirakawa Electric is not afraid of Hitachi and NEC.

This is the general pattern of the Walkman market at present, with three main players and two wandering players who beat the side drum.

Tsk, I just don’t know when Shirakawa Electric will grow to this day, spanning multiple fields and occupying a dominant position.

The future is promising, but it is still a long way to go.

After roughly passing the information about Shirakawa Electric, Shirakawa Kaede came to Yasuda to ask about the market feedback about the new model.

"Yamada Sang, how is our new generation of Walkman market feedback?"

After all, another new feature has been added, and Shirakawa Kaede also needs to pay attention to the market's evaluation of it.

"The overall evaluation is quite excellent, especially the automatic belt-turning function, which greatly increases the convenience of use."

As the director of the R&D department, Yasuda also paid much attention to the market feedback on the new model.
To be continued...