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By: Richard Del Cazzo
Web site: http://www.hdtv-hdtv.com
Japan's Hitachi Ltd said on Thursday it was targeting a
67 percent jump in sales of digital electronics over the next
four years by focusing on products with strong growth potential
such as flat screen TVs and DVD recorders.
Hitachi, Japan's largest electronics conglomerate, is aiming
for revenue from digital electronics to reach one trillion
yen ($9.2 billion) in the business year to March 2008, compared
to an estimated 600 billion yen in the year to March 2004.
Hitachi, which makes everything from nuclear power plants
to rice cookers, has forecast group revenue of 8.35 trillion
yen for the year that ended in March.
As part of its effort to achieve the one trillion yen target
for 2007/08, Hitachi unveiled on Thursday five new DVD recorders,
one of which is equipped with a 400-gigabyte hard disk drive
giving it the world's largest storage capacity.
The high-end model, capable of recording up to 360 hours
of TV programmes, is slated to hit store shelves by mid-June
with an expected retail price of around 145,000 yen ($1,335).
"The Olympic Games start on August 13 in Athens. We
want to put the product in the market at least two months
before the event," Hitachi's business planning manager,
Kenichi Koizumi, said on the sidelines of a news conference.
Consumer electronics makers hold high hopes that the Athens
Olympic Games will spur global demand for DVD recorders as
well as large, flat-screen televisions.
Hitachi is ideally placed to offer DVD recorders with large-capacity
hard disk drives since it has Hitachi Global Storage Technologies,
the world's second-largest HDD maker, in its group.
It also holds a 50 percent stake in Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma
Display Ltd, the world's largest plasma display panel maker.
Despite its aggressive target, Hitachi lags behind fellow
electronics makers Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd and
Mitsubishi Electric Corp in announcing latest models.
Matsushita, the world's largest DVD recorder maker with a
global share of 40 percent, said last month it planned to
launch five new models from March to June, with an eye to
raising its share to 50 percent.
Mitsubishi closely followed Matsushita in announcing its
plan to offer five new models in the second quarter of 2004,
heating up competition.
"I wouldn't say we were quick in coming to the market.
But on the upside, we offer world firsts and number ones in
the products," Koizumi said.
Besides the largest storage capacity, the top-end product
and another model are also the world's only models that can
read all DVD formats such as DVD-RAM and DVD-RW, Hitachi said.
DVD recorders are one of the "3-Ds" that have been
boosting demand for electronics goods in Japan, the other
two being digital cameras and display panels for flat televisions.
Hitachi aims to raise its share in Japan's DVD recorder market
to 10 percent in the current business year that started this
month, and further to 20 percent a year later. It currently
holds a few percent share in the domestic DVD recorder market.
Hitachi also plans an overseas launch of DVD recorders, but
details have not been decided, Hitachi officials said.
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