J-success in the "living room, not the boardroom"

[Taro Toporific]

Consumers, not companies, drive Japan's tech sales
IHT / NYT -- Friday, August 1, 2003
TOKYO One lesson from the latest round of quarterly earnings in Japan seems clear: If you want to succeed, work your way into the living room, not the boardroom....
Japanese conglomerates like Hitachi and NEC that are highly reliant on corporate sales released weaker results ....Canon and Pioneer, which make high-end digital cameras and DVD recorders, said their profits rose in the April-June quarter.

The dichotomy underscores the harsher prospects for companies still tied to older computer businesses. Though pressure to cut prices is severe in most categories of electronics, companies riding the rise of personalized digital entertainment products are benefiting the most.

"It's really who has new audiovisual products versus who is in the PC arena," said Richard Chu, an analyst at ING Securities in Tokyo.