Japanese firms return home, set eye on consumer electronics market

Tech giants, including Fujitsu, Toshiba, Panasonic, Casio, Sharp and Sony, are moving their productions back to Japan from China. With the operation supported by the government, Japanese giants are considering building a common plant. Japanese engineers had written a success story after World War II and accomplished a great transformation. However, Japanese giants that could not keep up with the Internet or software and global technology production have started downsizing and decided to return back to Japan. They will soon begin joint production at a common plant with support from the government. The Japanese state supports these firms that are planning to enter the consumer electronic market with innovative products.

Five deficiencies in focus

The big picture reveals that Japan is not very successful in the fields of entrepreneurship, design, software, Internet and marketing. For example, there are no leading companies in these areas in the country. Since Sony could not maintain the success it gained with the Vaio brand's design with its software, production costs and marketing could not achieve the required scale and had to withdraw. Japanese companies are preparing to realize a digital transformation by using robots in the production process, and this time they have to produce more sensitive production technology.

The Japanese economy, which had been trapped on the island, opened to the world through the success of its engineers. They received the treatment Chinese did in the new millennium in the '60s and '70s. Creating engineering marvels, Japan could not resist the engineering production power of China and South Korea in terms of quality. Since they made no progress in new Internet and software-integrated products, they had to return to Japan for production.

Robots more sensitive than women

Japanese companies have significant experience using robots in the automobile industry, but need to apply it to phone and screen technologies, too. They will inevitably introduce robots that are more sensitive than female staff in smartphone production. The use of robots at Foxconn, a Chinese smartphone, tablet and PC production company, is highly limited. Instead, female staff members are significantly preferred in the delicate stages of production process.

Apple and Google rivalry

Apple has grown enough to make many companies with large brand recognition and market capitalization jealous. The company's biggest miracle is not products and services but iPhone sales. Apple's software and content services like iTunes and the App Store bring significant revenue, but 70 percent of its revenue comes from iPhone sales. This is why Apple is a company that hardly any other can compete against, but has a delicate structure. This is analogous to a giraffe's unique height and unprecedented fragile appearance.

To diversify its revenue sources, Apple is now interested in product-related investments like Beats, rather than the Internet. However, it is hard to find consumers that can buy an iPhone for around $624 every year. Apple should also invest in advertising, content and software sales as well as its own products.

Setting its eye on Apple's crown, Google has put its foot on the pedal. The company's business is not product, but service-focused. A company's products on the Android platform can be bad or Google Glass may not be successful, but Google's revenues are not affected from such things. In recent times, even the failure of Google+ has not created a loss in the company's value. Google's advertising continues to grow.

Turkey sweeps social networks

Social media platform development and growth in Turkey has attracted brand investment. Research reveals that various Turkish brands are taking striking steps on a global scale. Turkish Facebook users who started retracing their footsteps by reconnecting with their old school friends are now building relationships with brands. Now grandmothers share their weddings and birthdays on Facebook. Turkish brands could not ignore these social media platforms that bring together individuals from all ages. The biggest social media rating company in the world that evaluates social media performances of brands, Socialbakers, announced the Turkish brands that were the most interactive in 2015. Turkish e-commerce companies dominated social media to reach their target audiences. A total of 10 out of 20 companies that have the highest interaction in Facebook were e-commerce firms. Sefamerve, a conservative clothing firm with 29 million page interactions between January and November 2015, was at the top of the list.

The most popular brand

With 4.3 million female followers on Facebook, Sefamerve was the second-fastest developing brand after Turkish Airlines in 2015, according to Socialbakers. Founded in 2012 as a social media-based business, Sefamerve has been included among the world's top 100 entrepreneurial companies by American popular tech magazine Red Herring. With its award-winning business model, Sefamerve surpassed many large-scale brands after the release of a recent social media report. Socialbakers Founder and CEO Jan Rezab said in a statement that the social marketing profiles of Turkish brands grow day-by-day, and they will continue to develop in the social media world.