The rise & fall of Japanese phone giants
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- Опубліковано 18 гру 2020
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The Story Behind series - episode 71
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Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Regular music by Edemski: / edemski - Наука та технологія
I remember when i went to Hong Kong in the early 2000s and I bought a Japanese camcorder. It was super thin and it has the capability to take still pictures as well. Folded up it looked like a thick cellphone. When I brought it back to the USA, everyone was in awe at that tech. I miss those days when you can be at awe by technology, especially Japanese technology.
Japan is dead i had to face that realty in 2014.
@@KallusGarnet what do you mean?
The questionwe need answering is if Japan going to or even able to pick up the slack even if it wanted to today.
I think most people would agree that when Japan rejected and did not jump on the bandwagon of the MP3 miniaturisation and its ubiquitous invasion into many products was the turning point for Japan .
My personal opinion was Japan thought it could continue to scale up on so called higher fidelity audio and analogue HD TV , and continue to add high value to these products and expected a market where people will continue to pay a premium over high fidelity , high quality sound products from Japan . That was a wrong market prediction.
Consumers was willing to sacrifice a loss of non discernible sound quality and video quality in exchange for instant replay, downloadability, instant gratification, and greater portability.
JAPAN bet on the wrong horse badly.
The next misstep Japan made was the mobile phone , and that is another big analysis I would not get into.
And the next area where Japan was eaten up by the competition was office automation products and PC and laptops.
I remember the Koreans started slowly by coming out with printers and catridges but Korea already had great plans on which areas to bet big . Nowadays , Japanese brands like NEC, TOSHIBA, PANASONIC is slowly fading into a blurry memory.
@@tenga3tango ergo, japanese companies that are still largly relevent are the ones where such things actually worked, ergo the entertainment industry. porn, hentai, video games, and anime.
@@KallusGarnet Very strong words , Dead . What do you mean .
Slowly boiled alive is more the description, 😉
I'm literally doing a Brand analysis University assignment on Sony, this video could not have timed any better.
Godly luck 😂😂
I think Sony is making a comeback with their new phones, headphones, earphones, TVs, cameras and the PS5. That's for the consumer business - they still have many other successful divisions for movies, music, insurance etc.
In Britain
How's it going? I'm the number one Sony Fan that made a Sony channel ua-cam.com/users/HRVexERH8417 how's your Sony project going?
@@ytlurker220 true
When I visited Japan in 2017, it blew my mind 90% of people had the same-looking iPhone 6/6S/7.
Because japanese software suck.
@@arx117 yes this is very true
@@arx117 But they are good at hardware
@@arx117 not really, when you look at game companies
@@arx117 Ever played some games dude?
It's sad to see that diversity of smartphone companies is decreasing.
USA, China and Korea are the only three countries that sell phones.
Europe, India, Japan and others have died
Indian brands are coming back eg micromax
@@devashishbhavsar never heard of them
USA doesnt sell anything, all iphones are made in China 😛
If not bothering with the US market is dead then I might prefer these brands to stay away from the United Slaves of Apple, save some more resources for R&D and sell products to people appreciating their style
@@lolcat You've never heard before is because Micromax is a local brand in India, once it was the most selling smartphone brand in India, now is completely irrelevant after the coming of Chinese smartphone wave in India
I remember back in early 2000s, I met some Japanese exchange students and they are looking down American's cell phone technologies to a point that they showed off their (unusable in the US) Japanese "advance" phone to me. I was genuinely excited with their phone.
Now it's only basically using either Chinese phones or South Korea phones with iPhone being the only prominent US phone
@@Gigi-zr6hp No more Japanese phones, no more Erisson, no more Nokia or Siemens. It's actually sad because there are fewer and fewer players in the field, there's less incentive for innovations.
@@Gigi-zr6hp
Germany is rising with their smartphones since 2018
all German made
strong like a Tiger 2 and reliable like an Flak 88
Gigaset
@@krixpop Doesn't Gigaset primarily make cordless landline phones? I had never heard about them before, I doubt their smartphones are popular anywhere outside of Germany.
@@Eddies_Bra-att-ha-grejer
Gigaset is selling over here in Belgium as well by both greatest internet/mobile providers, Proximus and Telenet.
I am planning to buy one this winter.
It has good reviews and is exactly what I need .
(not much of a mobile-zombie anyway lol)
I went to Japan when i was still 10/12 years old, it was the 1995s and I remembered going into Akihabara like a literal kid in a candy store. It was so surreal, Japan had the most advance technology at the time. I am from Indonesia and when I saw that they can do video call over their mobile phone I was literally floored. It was sooooooo advance at the time, I remembered vividly thinking that why is this not in every other countries!?!? It dawned on me that the infrastructure is not compatible but surely they can port that and make it into mass market in GSM infrastructure.
Japan was in a different league. They just missed out on the software revolution.
Ok, I just watched the whole video. Japan missed out on exporting their technology and got side swiped by the software revolution.
One reason Japan switched to email instead of the SMS protocol came down down to SMS not being able to handle the Japanese character sets correctly (at the time). Email already used the UTF system and could handle the complexities of the Japanese written language easily.
SMS can now handle the extended character sets easily and is used parallel to the email system on the Galapago phones. I absolutely loved using them during my time in Japan.
What do you mean by galapago phones? Did you mean Japanese phones or all advanced Eastern phones?
@@kfj6709 Just the Japanese flip phones.
Reason they were called Galapago phones is because the Galapagos islands are home to species only ever found there. Hence the name Galapago, as the phone is unique to Japan and will only work in Japan.
Throw in Canada we once dominated the global smartphone market remember when blackberry was a must have phone just over a decade ago?? 😄
Drug dealers still use them.
@@snowdog03 Not technical but I believe back then the hype was mostly because it was more secure drug dealing is business too 😄
I do remember when blackberry was the real deal. Having a blackberry in india is like you are royalty.
@@ameerikbal8160 indeed I had a blackberry in 2009-10 and it was the best thing at the time most business people had it as their primary phone.
That's Canadian? Blackberry's were sought after by businessmen.
Your content is always unique .
Your comment is always unique.
Weren't you from atomic shrimp? ,
@@khmerkandal121 yes 👍, I am.
Ur
@@africa_everyday nice!
It is quite sad. For decades, I've been interested in Japan. From 2001-2002, I studied abroad there and was blown away by the phones. They seemed at least a decade, if not more, ahead of what was in the West. While we had small black and white integrated screens without internet for the most part, they had flip-phones that allowed for much larger, full-color screens with at least a version of the internet, songs, and many other features. I went back to Japan in 2005 to teach English and again saw their amazing phones, while we languished. (Finnish) Nokia, which was among the most popular Western brands, was no match against Japanese phones. Then, I came home for vacation in the winter of 2007, and I went to a Barnes & Noble with my friend, and they were selling the iPhone. I was shocked, as this phone with an even bigger screen seemed like a leap over the Japanese competition, but it still looked like it could be a fight, as all the 3rd-party apps and such were not yet available. But soon, it became clear that the iPhone and Android Phones were going to dominate. In the year 2010, I finally got my first smartphone in Japan. I was a rebel. It wasn't an iPhone or a Japanese phone (which were mostly still feature phones at the time). It was a Taiwanese HTC Desire HD. And that changed everything phone-wise for me. And although HTC met the same fate as many of the Japanese companies, I currently (in America) use an Android phone...now the Chinese OnePlus 5, which gives me a good value for the price. I'm sad to see what happened to Japan not only in terms of being a cell phone pioneer, but also being the country that produced the most and best video games, although they are still doing better with video games than cell phones. Even so, the provider-specific experiences needed to end, because they had too much power to determine what was possible or no on your phone. That's another reason I have never owned an Apple product, and instead use Android. I have more freedom and options. That was a good change. But I do miss Japan being at the cutting edge of technology.
It's the nature of business in Japan, they aim to survive, they don't compete.
Japan's strong entrepreneurial spirit died a long time ago, while America is able to consistently produce legendary entrepreneurs. The number of strong entrepreneurs is what fundamentally determines the strength of your empire.
@@charlech Why do you think it died?
Lived there a few years during pre iPhone era and was baffled by the tech in their flipphones at the time. Was so sad seeing they gave up their head start while visiting last year.
@@charlech It's not even close to death, you didn't read my reply. For example Toyota is the #1 best selling car brand in the world, and there's a reason for that: every other car companies are competing, they tune engines to produce more power year after year, they change engines, they change transmission, and they try to produce a lot of cars in a short time, and at the end, their chance of failure is high. However, Toyota doesn't do that, a 2020 Toyota Hilux uses the same engine that was designed in 2004, Toyota doesn't play with the rest of the kids. Now this Japanese strategy works well if you sell cars to 30-40 year old men who work smart and understand reason, but if you sell smartphones in this way to 7-16 year old kids, you would end up like Sony, kids don't understand reason, you have to jingle keys in front of them.
When first iPhone came to Japan
Japanese phones could do: watch TV, work for a week without charging, use as an e-wallet, high-resolution camera
what iPhone was better at: the internet
The hi-res at that time is different from today. Compare to these day those are not hi enough. hence today smartphone consume more power resource than before. If you attach the same batery that were using during nokia era, the phone would going to black out sooner.
correction
what the iPhone was better at: the Internet, means of navigation, has an app store
There's also a high tech watches too that Japan didn't do in 2000s.
The Japanese phones were awesome.
@@damnfreakingsien didnt had half of that at the start... first iphone was only good for internet browsing - at the time where most sites wernt optimized for it = it was bad even at that.
"But then Sony acquired a relatively tiny entertainment company and it started to massively screw up. When MP3 rolled around and Sony's walkman customers were clamoring for a solid-state MP3 player, Sony let its music business-unit run its show: instead of making a high-capacity MP3 walkman, Sony shipped its Music Clips, low-capacity devices that played brain-damaged DRM formats like Real and OpenMG. They spent good money engineering "features" into these devices that kept their customers from freely moving their music back and forth between their devices. Customers stayed away in droves. Today, Sony is dead in the water when it comes to walkmen. The market leaders are poky Singaporean outfits like Creative Labs - the kind of company that Sony used to crush like a bug, back before it got borged by its entertainment unit - and PC companies like Apple."
-Cory Dotorow, 2007
Yeah, Sony screwed up the Walkman brand up big time. All they had to do was release a good MP3 player and the iPod wouldn't have been able to touch it in terms of popularity. People forget that Apple weren't that popular at all before the iPod
Sony eventually became what they rebelled against in the 70's with the Video Tape Recorder, pissing off the motion picture industry, so much so that the US government went after Sony, wanting to ban imports unless Sony stopped making "VCR's", they ended up compromising, then several years down the road, they go & buy Columbia and the rest is history, they became DRM crazy. Were you recording their copyrighted properties (or attempting to circumvent the idiotic & proprietary embedded software) ? Well, you're not allowed or sued! Then not long after, you would have an out of date, useless tech, obsolescence at its highest, I'll never forgive you Sony. Ahhh Karma, my old friend, hello there. I'm not feeling sorry for Sony, their bed, all 100% made by them, now they can lie forever in it. 😴
Sony is still the market leader in high end MP3 players right now. It’s zx300, 507 and even wm lines have been selling out everywhere.
@@franklingoodwin iPod story is much more complicated than than. It was stroke of a genius really - Apple united Big 4 of publishers and got most popular library of music available. Steve even made such a deal that companies were so sure that they got better of Apple and iPod - and they were completly wrong. See, Apple didnt made billions by selling iPod - no, the iTunes store made them rich. Publishers couldnt care less about "digital file" and were more into "CDs" but they were trying to prevent piracy and by signing such a deal, to make up for a loss that "piracy" make, they legalized digital music and literally dug their own graves. Whos buying CDs now? Or any other proprietary format? No one. And furthermore - Audio CD is made by Philips and Sony! Sony made money out of every single Audio CD sale in the world. And that is why they were never into "mp3 players" seriously. Apple destroyed music industry by iPod and iTunes - and don get me started on their ban because another company named "Apple Inc" and in the ownership by Beatles (yes, those Beatles) filed complained about Apple 15 years before iPod! This was Steve Jobs revange against everyone and it was as ruthless as possible.
Sure, music industry would be destroyed by internet eventually but Steve Jobs made a lot of money before internet ever took a swing. And best part of it - hes foreseen all of this before anyone else and that is why Apple even made iPod - to make money while theres still time.
@@feiticeirafatale561 The thing is, Sony actually own most of the big record labels. So it wasn't as genius as you claim. It was more a case of Sony shooting themselves in the foot and Apple taking advantage. Something they couldn't have done otherwise. Apple didn't have the industry clout before the iPod, considering they were saved from bankruptcy by Bill Gates only a couple of years before
I worked on some of these FOMA phones, it's hard to believe how ahead of time they were with face recognition, video and audio editing and digital payments years ahead of rest of the world. I believe part of their downfall is they never really tried to sell them outside of Japan.
"And that i think is quite sad...,
ANYWAY..."
That's quite a transition!
9:03
It was uncharacteristically sudden and harsh
I am just sitting here, watching this video in a Xperia phone (my 4th Sony phone in my lifetime) and just wishing that Sony keeps manufacturing (and selling well) new phones.
Yeah, I also hope they continue. My daily phones were all Sony from 2002 to 2017, then I got a stupid good deal on the S8 and then upgraded to Note 10+. I'll definately consider what Sony has on offer when I decide to upgrade again.
We know Sony's camera hardware is top notch and the manual mode gives awesome level of control, but I think Pixel and Galaxy phones tend to take nicer photos on full auto mode at the moment. That's just software lacking, so hopefully it improves with updates or gcam works well.
Sony was too proud for their past glory and refuse to adopt new better tech that not from in-house. My guess all japam tech compamy almost having the same style
They finally made a sleeper hit this year,there is yet hope
Very well researched, and well written documentary. I lived in Tokyo from 2000-2004 and had engineering friends who worked NTT Docomo at the time, and they having come from Italy at the time were completely blown away by the technology available at the time to average consumer. It was nice to be able to switch up from the PHS, which I had through High School, I-Mode was a game changer.
Thank you for the video. I live in Japan and I think Japanese phones are really weird. Also in Japan, Japanese phones are called garake or Galápagos phone literally means that the phones evolved within Japan so I wonder how foreigners see these Japanese phones to be honest.
Also, people in Japan are really loyal for Apple so it is more likely to buy a iphone by any chance.
So that's where the name comes from. When I first arrived to Japan and attempted to buy a SIM card, I was a bit confused by this term that seemed to apply to feature phones.
Inward looking Japan is always weird.
I mean, If I was japanese I'd buy Iphone too rather than buying korean or chinese stuff
@@LeoMkII iPhones are Chinese my dude. As I type this on a 13 pro max
Man, I used to love Sony smartphones, their design was super simple and refined, sadly I never coul afford one because other manufacturers had cheaper phones with comparable specs.
A few years ago Sony released some phones in the US that had fingerprint sensors installed but that had been intentionally disabled. Supposedly because Sony wouldn't pay for some patent licenses. At that point I knew they were done.
When I first went to Japan in 2000, I was amazed how far in the future everything was, but it pretty much stagnated since. Last time I was there in 2017 I still couldn’t get a regular throw away SIM card. Had to get a wifi box that I had to return at the airport or pay a big fine if I lose it.
And honestly it’s fun, kitschy, but totally stuck in the past with their tech.
Only person who doesn't post videos while I'm sleeping
what's your time zone?
because he lives in Europe
Why does it matter at what hour someone publishes their video? You can watch it whenever you like.
I just watched "Steins;Gate" anime where everybody uses mails instead of sms or message apps and I was quite suprised by that. Even though the action is placed in 2010, so after the peak of the carrier services, thanks to your video I understand where that came from, thanks :) That's somehow sad that this innovative approach of japanese technology was replaced by some generic all the same smartphones.
Japan had the potential to dominate the mobile industry forever, but they refused to export their cutting edge technologies to the USA. It is one of the costliest mistakes Japan has ever made.
They got secretly sanctioned for that.
@@cb250nighthawk3 yes this is true sadly.
Sure they did😂, they just failed to see the future.
It's their weird ass logic of Japan only, like how they do it on their entertainment and cars.
Japan can be quite insular, their local market is....different. Successful Japanese companies seem to make a conscious effort to be more “open”. Toyota and Honda, for example, have kept design bureaus in the US for decades.
I literally bought Xperia 1 II yesterday..
it is a good phone. at least sony gives you a quality on their phones.
@@GURCISTANAZERISI Precisely, but sadly iphone just stomp it all mercilessly.
Bought the same phone which is amazing, I am a Sony man since Xperia X8.
Same, xperia has been good since a couple of years ago.
Once you get an Xperia, you can never go back. Such a good phones
Digital TV streaming. What da duck. That's why I wonder why in Anime everything happens in those flip phones, their flip phones were on high tech
It wasn't Digital TV "streaming" like the uploader describes it. The phones in Japan are actually capable of receiving digital TV broadcasts. This was before streaming was a thing.
@@KoushiroIzumi85 I remember having a pocket TV. Man, how the times have changed.
In my country (Brazil) there are some Galaxy phones capable of receiving digital TV too! U don't even need a data plan for that, cause it's free.
@@MrRodrigo1250 They are Korean models.
For the documentaries, do meet current executives of HMD Global and ask what's going on inside. They are destroying Nokia phones.
@Silvester You really see Nokia phones as competitive? Nokia doesn't even come in top 10 smartphone brands in the world.
@@jl86_ Their marketing and advertising is weak compared to big brands.
Nokia was destroyed long back
@Silvester You are ill-informed. Nokia phones didn't exist for 2-3 years before HMD brought them back in 2017.
It relies on people simping them to buy and realize it sucks more than china phones
This is one of the best episode you have done in this series so far. Real quality content.
Keep it up!
Can't wait to see the new series! Good luck with creating and thank You for all the hard work You put in all of Your videos! :D
Hope you cover the success story of Korea as well because they also had a dominating phone carrier with a proprietary app platform. So tight that the first iPhone that came into the market was iPhone 3GS in late 2009, and it almost didn't make it because it had WiFi. It would be a great case study against Japan.
I started living in Japan from 2003. I brought with me my unusable Nokia 3310. One day mom showed my phone to her Japanese friends and they all thought it was a toy. 😅 Japan made phones were packed with features like internet and TV and I remember seeing the various models displayed on the shops. They were really ahead from the rest of the world. My last Japanese phone was a Sony Experia back in 2011 and it sucked big time. It’s just way more easier to own an iphone now. But yeah I kinda miss it when Japanese phones were kings here. 😅
I still have my Xperia, I'll never use an apple phone
This video was great! The editing and the content is highly over the average UA-cam quality. I'm really looking forward to your documentary series
Watched this episode after some time and TA has moved to better topics of interest! Nice. Looking forward to more such documentaries.
Sony has a problem that other brands have "solved": I have bought just two Sony phones over the last decade. First lasted 5 years, the second is in its 4th year and is still going strong. Most other phones will disintegrate in such periods of time - especially after being dropped on the street dozens of times.
when reliability and ruggedness are actually a disadvantage for your company... this is why we consumers are doomed
This is the same case with Apple (apart from dropping the phone part), with their 4-5 years of software support. I myself is still rocking the iPhone 8 . Sony phones simply do not have any deal-breaking features. Pixel: cameras; Apple: seamless exp.; Samsung: cameras and featuers; Chinese brands: price
How's the software update though
I dunno.. My Sony-Ericsson phone (IIRC it was "T-280" or something, from late 2000s) it lasted for ~2 years. It works well till, suddenly, it start buzzing super-annoying high pitch noise out of nowhere.
Then I bought Samsung Galaxy Note (the first gen) and it lasted for 6+ years, and still running rn (it has battery issue, but that's pretty much it). My current smartphone (Galaxy Note 5) is about 4-5 yo now, and still running well.
My colleague's iPhone 4s also lasted ~7 years till she upgraded to iPhone Xs (which is ~2 yo at this point).
That's not the reason lol.
9:09 That's why I love your channel so much, you fulfill my curiosity and i terests without me even asking, and you go all the way and provide us with legit info that's excellently scripted a cookie can understand, thanks man.
This was a stellar video. Love the clear research that went into this - I recognised all the Japanese electronic brands mentioned funny enough.
Love it. More of this type of content please!
Loved my Sharp Aquos I used between 2014-2018, it had a very useful built in screen lock feature, so I could put the phone in the pocket with the screen turned on.
Funny thing that the iPhone, or at least I feel that way, is more Japanese than Japanese cellphones, with that simplicity and care in all the details of the experience. Said that I love my Sharp Sh06D evangelion edition. I only would wish batteries would be generic so I could have more life of it :c
1. Really loved this ep
2. differeNtiation!
3. I cannot wait to see your new documentary-style videos - good luck
The new series sounds amazing!
One of the best top tech UA-cam channel..
You forgot one thing: Japan invented emoji.
Emoji`s were here from the start of computers. Yes, they were symbols at that time but that was emojis for sure.
@@feiticeirafatale561 those were emoticons, not emoji's
i was using those since 1990s and 2000s.. when there was icq and msn messenger .. i still use :) ;) :D .. since my keyboard doesnt have emoji button :lol:
@@HERKELMERKEL what keyboard or phone do you use, trying to figure why the keyboard doesn't a dedicated emoji in 2020
Emoji is a text encoding standard first and foremost.
Can’t wait for that series! All the best .
I'm a Japanese, and I'm glad to see tech people talk about Japan's mobile phone situation in English!
Watching on my Sony Xperia 1 II. I love this phone.
Same here!
Legendary phone. I'll still dreaming to have one
Me too :D
i wish i had one, but the price..hmm
It's a good phone but without a 120hz screen and way too experience!
I'm currently using the Sony Xperia XZ, Bruh! It has Awesome Camera
Great for video recording
I actually love your old intro music and it's one of the reasons why I used to watch your videos besides your great content!!!
Excelent analysis and reasoning. Thank you
I remember that. I lived in Japan from 2004 to 2008. When I came back to Brazil, just before the IPhone became a thing, it was like if I went back in time lol
It's insane how far ahead Japan was in the early 2000s 😮......it makes one wonder what could have been if they focused on and pursued the global market at that time instead of almost exclusively making their phones for the domestic market....
Great content as usual appreciate the information and the efforts.
Great vid! Thank you for uploading...
My first Sony smartphone was Sony Xperia Z, I still think that phone has the best music player I had. I couldn't buy any Sony phones after that since Sony phased out in my country..
Why did their mobile payment seemingly regressed with them preferring to use cash now if they had NFC payment back in the 2000s?
Some people prefer cash due to privacy. In Europe as well like Germany for example. Cash is the king.
@@kristijangrgic9841 Well, I live in Germany yet I use NFC Payment
@@ademkaragoz4104 i dont really care but thank you for your information
@@kristijangrgic9841 wtf dude
That series sounds really cool. You can do it over video call or ship them filming equipment. Less impact on the environment that way.
Thanks for the content brother.
Always interesting and informative. Thanks for helping spread knowledge and information.
Well, the smartphone industry has basically stagnated TBH, it will just get cheaper as more manufacturers will be sprouting from different countries.
@-Can Ameri- I disagree, that's how Xiaomi, oppo and others became what they are, when pretty much all phones and their parts are assembled by the same company there's nothing much more than price to tempt the people
Here in Italy there was one phone operator who attempted to launch an i-mode internet service in 2003 (in partnership with a japanese operator), but it failed pretty quickly.
Fascinating channel!! Great story!!
Looks like a great project to do next. Will definitely watch with great interest.
Basically they did the same screw up IBM did in the 80's. Invest heavy in hardware, keep software on the backburner. Smartphones and personal computers pretty much had the same arc
Japanese brands did better than IBM in the 70's and 80's
I've always had love-hate with Sony. They make some great platforms and then try to screw the consumer by forcing narrow proprietary standards that always end up disappearing (cords, memory cards, etc.). thank goodness for standards like USB.
Remember that weird connector Sony Ericsson's phones had that was used for both charging and headphones? Those sucked.
I love the deep dives. Thank you.
Love your videos. Thank you!
I love Xperia phones since Xperia S was introduced. I'd love to own Xperia 5 II but sadly they no more sell in India.
The fall of Japanese economy in general
Awesome I can support you via Flattr!! This is great news!
Hey! I completed all my work to watch this video. Great content.
I used Xperia before... The phone function and settings feels like a constant struggle to solve a puzzle in one of those classic Japanese video games. My first and last for Japanese smartphones.
It is also interesting what happened to Japanese robotics and especially Asimo from Honda. Now Boston dynamics seems to be way ahead in bipedal motion amongst others.
I love your contents man!
What killed them was the issue with proximity sensor on Z3 and Z5 that was happening to almost every user. When contracts finished customers moved away from the brand.
"And this is just sad..."
ANYWAY
Very informative. Thank You.
you deserve MORE views and recognition than what you have right now, really.
Japan has missed such an important market, where South Korea and China have taken almost all of it.
Not South Korea, only Samsung.
@@mourgos1234 Then what about LG?
@@etnevel.naitzsirk they has really small market margin
True. It seems by trying to strengthen their local market and boycotting chinese korean phonemakers they lost the quick moving race within the smartphonemarket
@@mourgos1234 lol!
After Nokia failed. I've used a lot of Xperia phones. I like their industrial design, which is the main reason why I buy them, but they do have many disadvantages, such as poor battery life, small memory, poor signal, unreliable waterproof and so on. I want to say that it's really normal for Sony's phones to be eliminated from the market. I haven't used other Japanese brands, so I don't evaluate them. I hope Sony can focus on the areas they are better at, such as cameras, video, hifi and Playstation.
Very informative and insightful video 👍
At 0:26 "And just a few years later, phones like the Sharp 912SH became commonplace in Japan supporting contactless mobile payments, cameras with 3 or more megapixels, digital TV streaming and more"
Uhh, actually their phones were capable of receiving digital TV broadcasts (1seg) so you can't really call it "streaming".
That's why a lot of them had those pull-out antennas.
Classic example of isolated speciation, where one animal specie (Japan proprietary formats) evolve in their own ecosystem. But when an invasive generalist specie (iPhone and Android) enter that ecosystem, the isolated animals do not possess the skills to adapt... and they become extinct. Evolution is everywhere, including the economy.
Ouch
for a brief period of time in 2005 i-Mode was actually present outside Japan as a technology licensed by Russian carrier MTC from NTT DoCoMo
Also by Cosmote in Greece
Also by Bouygues Telecom in France in 2003-2007 If I remember correctly
I remember my grandma SAGEM flip phone having an I-mode button circa 2004-5 in France
I love your videos! Keep it up
your studio is ultra awesome
Their mobile info system goes back even earlier, to the 80's
I actually bought my first Sony phone this year - an Xperia 5 II.
*Hey man you deserve millions of subscriber's , every time you are coming up with wonderful topics* 👌👌👌👌👍❤️
I'm so excited to watch your documentaries! Let us know if we can contribute with anything, financially, with ideas, etc!
When I went to japan 12 years ago, I was fascinated by Japanese mobile phones so much. Eventhough back then I used Nokia 6600 which by then is not the current generation Symbian, it was still a smartphone that support native 3rd party apps and multitasking, but when I compare it to Japanese 3G FOMA phone, I felt that my Nokia is just a toy.
The other problems of Japanese phone maker is software. After iPhone became mainstream in Japan. The other carriers that still had not started selling iPhone back then tried to market their own Android phone as an alternative. A problem was that they try to build in all the custom services on top of Android and it became bloated. It makes Japanese people assume that Android is worse than iPhone and Android reputation in the country is quite worse, compare to the other country.
Great video. I worked with NEC doing a portion of the network for the worlds first 3G network for KDDI in Japan back in 2000-2001. I posted a video of one of these Galapagos phones in 2007 when I went back for a vacation. Two words... Digital television.... yes, they had TV antennas! Subscribed, I look forward to your next video...
good info and I noticed the mobil market when I was there, your info is so correct. thanks
I thinking about opening a tech company that focus on software in japan and I find your video informative 😄 I still are going and start my company in japan and who knows it might become big
I am still using my sony xperia z and I gotta say, japanese products lasts longer.
makin me wish i invested in sony. i live for phones that last 5+ years ugh.
I think that's more "premium products last longer". I used a Galaxy S2 for almost 6 years, and you regularly see people with iPhone models from 5+ years ago.
@@TheRoniverseOfficial yes, I have been using my xperia Z since 2013 and its still amazingly sexy XD
I remember back in 2004 I had a Sanyo flip phone with a 0.8 megapixel camera and I thought it was amazing. Sony has released good phones lately but needs to give marketing a bigger budget.
I was tweet replied about Sony and mention @TechAltar some weeks ago exactly about this interesting Sony story.. THANK YOU..
Good job... I will be recommending your Channel... as it is not all how great apple tech is but how technology is evolving..
I do appreciate Sony for bringing back some well beloved features, in the 1 and 5 mark two. but these days that just isn't enough. but to be fair, no one rules forever see Nokia and HTC.
Recently, Rakuten started to make their own phones. I guess they can be somewhat successful on a national level, but probably not internationally. especially since no one knows Rakuten outside of Japan.
Rakuten is a market place online .. like amazon in the usa,.
In Italy is well known
Yes, although Rakuten is expanding to a lot of areas recently in Japan, I doubt that their business model is international-focused. Of course, vendors would want to work with Japanese companies thru Rakuten, but there is still Amazon, and their main businesses are strictly focused on Japanese customers, like the Rakuten bank, Rakuten mobile, and such.
I love your topics =D
Unique content! ❤️
Between 2000-2008 japanese phones were like science fiction for the rest of the world, literally 1-2 decades ahead at least in integration/ideas.