Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1958)

SMALL RADIOS-NEW JAPANESE INVASION: What bothers the 50-odd U.S. manufacturers of radios and phonographs, now threatened with a veritable "invasion" of Japanese-made items, notably transistorized portable radios (Vol. 14:6), is that American tax money and American military guardianship are propping the economy of one of most skillful and enterprising peoples on earth. They share that worry with makers of cameras, toys, stainless steel flatware, optical instruments & sewing machines. The Japanese products in these categories are also leaping our tariff barriers — easily — to compete in the U.S. market. Germany presents a like threat — less in small radios than large, notably radio-phonos in the |200-|300 bracket. But the German wage standard is higher and the American product is able to compete on more even terms. TVs are unaffected yet by import competition — but they may well be in due time. Certainly, when TV "goes transistor," the transistor-wise Japanese may pose a real threat. Right now, practically no TVs are imported into this country. ^ ^ ^ We spent much of this week probing and trying to evaluate the Japanese radio import situation. Here's gist of what we found out from govt, and private sources: Japanese radio production .jumped from 1,000,000 units in 1952 to 2,000,000 in 1955 and 3,000,000 in 1956. Figure probably is 3,800,000 for 1957 and looks like 5.000. 000 for 1958. The American market in 1956 took only 368,040 units, which at Japanese factory prices averaged about $7 each — to which, of course, had to be added the 12)^% ad valorem duty and a fair profit to handlers. We imported about 640,000 radios from Japan in 1957 — and this year, so we're informed, figure may very well run 1,000,000. Japanese trade papers use ruleof-thumb that 30% of Japan's radios are exported, of which 70% go to the U.S. What concerns American set makers most is not the 1,000,000 import units — which would be about 10% of U.S. home market, measured by 1957 output (Vol. 14:6) — but, as one executive put it to us: "They're hitting us in our growth area, or where our new business is — in transistorized portables and pocket sizes. That's where our profit has been lately." It's a 50% threat, not merely 10%, in the eyes of some U.S. makers, for the 1.000. 000 Japanese imports will compete mainly against our 3,500,000 expected portable sales, of which at least 2,000,000 will be transistor portables. Japanese list prices for portables generally run $10 to $30 below ours. "This is not dime-store stuff, either," said one maker. "They've got quality control over there now. The workmanship is good and the tone is good." When we do compete on price, we apparently do it by skimping on the number of transistors. For example, this week Philco beat the Japanese $29.95 prices on 6-transistor portables (Vol. 14:6) by coming out with a 3-transistor set at $19.95 ("no bigger than a kingsize pack of cigarets"). Trav-Ler ' s 5-transistor unit lists at $29.95. ^ ^ ^ ^ In the production of transistors themselves, the Japanese are coming along in a big way. In 1954, they produced only 11,623. Thenceforth, the output multiplied until it was estimated at 8,000,000 in 1957, probably more than 50,000,000 in 1958. So they'll be competing with our burgeoning transistor industry — about 28,738,000 production in 1957 ‘ — in the export of semi-conductors, too. Thanks to mass production, average U.S. price of a transistor went down from $3.10 in 1956 to $2.40 in 1957. How much, it's being asked, can the Japanese save by increasing their transistor production some 700% this year? 12