Strategy in TECH...
LG Electronics Inc., a leading manufacturer in a diverse range of businesses, announced their fiscal 2019 first quarter results this week. With consolidated sales of KRW (Korean won) 14.92 trillion ($13.27 billion) and an operating profit of KRW 900.6 billion ($801.25 million), the company showed respectable numbers, but those results that represented a decline for the quarter.
There’s been a lot of action this week on the OLED beat – in this case, news that holds promise for a new robust competitor in the OLED market. The company, known as JOLED (for Japan OLED), is a joint venture between two TV powerhouse brands and a major display manufacturer that has successfully raised money to complete a new OLED factory.
Like many countries, Japan is facing a dramatic shortage in the number of available high-tech workers. To address this situation, the country has decided to make computer programming classes mandatory for all students, starting in elementary school. Students will be mandated to study coding for their entire educational experience, every year from 5th grade through high school graduation in the hopes of filling the high-tech worker shortfall and catching up with the rest of the world.
Global competition continues to heat up and nowhere is that more obvious than a recent analysis from the World Intellectual Property Organization noting that in 2018 – for the first time in human history – the region of Asia filed the majority of all international patent applications. This new reality suggests that Asia is “rapidly increasing their presence in global innovation,” the report says.
And which company in particular was tops in the world for innovation? WIPO says it was Huawei Technologies, who filed the most patents from a single company in the world.
At the urging the industry minister of Japan, the country’s Fair Trade Commission will look at a new program announced by Amazon Japan that some suggest may be anti-competitive in nature. Depending on the Commission’s findings, Amazon may be forced to abandon the idea, which is a form of a consumer rebate program.
We learned today that Bowers and Wilkins (B&W) is close to launching a new series of products that appear to be under the “Formation” brand or series name. This news broke when MacRumors, a fan blog for aficionados of Apples McIntosh products, noticed a listing on Apple’s online list of sanctioned HomeKit and AirPlay accessories. They dug deeper…
The headline caught my attention immediately – “Exclusive: Foxconn reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant.” This story, from the highly respected Reuters News Agency, follows a series of articles on Foxconn’s growing business struggles in the wake of a decline in sales to Apple. But it immediately raised a red flag with me…
We have followed Foxconn for years now, first picking up on them in 2012 when news had emerged that a significant Apple supplier was having problems with employees committing suicide – eventually forcing the company to install ‘suicide nets’ on their taller factories and offices to help thwart further suicide attempts. Foxconn has continued on to become one of Apple, Inc.’s largest iPhone supplier of parts and assembly.
As you head home from work today, take a look around you at the other commuters on the road. All around you are Toyotas, Hondas, Nissans, Suburus and the like. These are all signs of the incredible success Japan has has penetrating the U.S. automobile market – taking significant market share away from the once dominant Big Three American auto makers, GM, Ford, and Dodge/Chrysler many years ago.
Can Japan do it again? Are builders D.R. Horton, Lennar, PulteGroup, K.B. Homes at risk of the same loss of market share? If Takeshi Homma (pictured here) is successful, he hopes to help Japanese companies take a big bite of the American homebuilding market.
The Chinese government has targeted artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology they want to dominate globally. They are pouring billions of dollars annually into AI development and directing universities to focus on the technology in all of their fundamental research.
Now, in the first public demonstration of their progress in AI technology, the state-run Xinhua News Agency has introduced and demonstrated a pair of virtual news anchors or avatars based on two known Chinese flesh-and-blood reporters.
