Measure for Measure

Hard information on selected economic sectors and industries
Compiled by Ken Worsley of www.JapanEconomyNews.com

Automotive

• Toyota’s drop in profit for the first quarter of 2008: -28%
• Decline in sales at Toyota over the same period: -5%
• Share of US auto market held by Japanese automakers in June sales: 43%
• Decline in new car sales in Japan in the first half of 2008: -2%
• Number of new cars sold in Japan over the same period: 2.78 million
• Last year in which new car sales were as low: 1983
• Japan’s market share leader for car navigation systems: Pioneer
• Decline in shipments of new car navigation systems in 2007: -11.6%
• Japan’s best-selling vehicle model in July 2008: Honda Fit
• Consecutive months in which the Fit has been Japan’s best-selling vehicle: 9
• Increase in domestic sales of Toyota’s Prius in July over the previous year: +58%

Consumer Electronics

• Market share leader for home air conditioning units in 2007: Matsushita
• Matsushita’s share of the domestic market: 23.1%
• Nintendo’s market share of Japan’s gaming console market in 2007: 67.2%
• Sony’s share: 31.2%
• Microsoft’s share: 1.6%
• Wii consoles sold in Japan in 2007: 3.63 million
• PlayStation 3 units sold in Japan in 2007: 1.21 million
• Amount Sony intends to spend on increasing its lithium ion battery output by 80%: ¥40 billion
• Average price drop in Sony TVs from over a year ago: -20% to -25%
• Number of television units Sony expects to sell globally in 2008: 17 million
• Sony’s share of the Blu-Ray DVD recorder market: 50.3%

Mobile Telephony

• Estimated decrease in production cost for an iPhone 3G: -23%
• Estimated cost of the 8-gigabyte flash memory in an iPhone: US$23
• Decline in handset sales at Sharp in the second quarter of 2008: -39%
• Number of Sharp handsets sold during that period: 2.99 million
• Estimated profit increase generated from Mitsubishi leaving the handset business: ¥1 billion
• Estimated size of the mobile phone e-commerce market in 2007: ¥1 trillion
• Approximate commissions charged per sale by Japan’s mobile operators: 9%
• Second quarter sales at NTT DoCoMo, KDDI au and Softbank, respectively: -21%, -19%, -23%
• Increase in operating profit at DoCoMo over the same period: +45%
• Estimated percentage of mobile phone sales derived from renewals: 75%