2007 becomes a turning point for demand of TVs – interview with Mr. Masatsugu Teragawa, GM at SHARP

The US market still focuses on the sales price but also prefer High Definition (HD) models.

- How were the sales in the global market, especially US?

Without fail, US are the most severe market about the price of products. Some people say US consumers don’t care about video quality. The reason is that in the past, 42” rear projection TVs, with lower picture quality, became a hit product. However, that is a misunderstanding. US people selected that TV because of its available price. The full HD adapted ratio is still low in the US market, but they make a very fair evaluation of product quality. The only difficulty is setting the right price.

Next generation DVD will becomes a hot product in 2008. The point is “valuable” price

- Can DVD recorders make stable sales growth like flat-styled TVs?

Right now there is competition between Blu-ray Disc (BD) and HD DVD. I think the difference of standard is not as important. For expansion of this market, prevalence of media that can record HD picture is needed. Another point is to make DVD recorders easier to operate. We must make more effort in this area. Whether we could rollout an attractive product or not is an important point for expanding the demand. There are still many things to do, so we will have to work hard.

- What do you see as the hot price of next generation DVD?

The full-scale penetration will start in 2008, but we would like to accelerate consumers demand. In order to do that, the price of BD needs to decrease. The price ¥200,000, ¥100,000 and ¥50,000 are said to be the “magic price” that stimulates the market. The demand will gradually increase when the price of BD is ¥100,000, and then will accelerate when the price becomes less than ¥50,000. Our target price is ¥100,000. This price cannot generate profits, but other makers may also set the same target as us. We want to make next generation DVD a big seller by the Beijing Olympics if possible.

- As for HD items, the only product we’ve seen is the SHARP digital camcorder. Are there plans for other products?

We never said that we wouldn’t make other products. It is still in our plan, but right now we are trying to make something that is not just a replication of others, but something that is very SHARP.