President and Founder, Japan Electrification Research Institute, Ltd.
SUMMARY. The global auto industry is bubbling with changes and dramatic new ideas, but the current declining financial performances of Japanese auto OEMs may force them to drop out of the race temporarily before they can take advantage of the growing demand for autonomous vehicles.
The Tokyo Motor Show was a major event that attracted 2 million people from the 1980s to the 1990s, but in recent years the number of visitors has decreased and the last exhibition in 2017 drew only 770,000 attendees.
New car sales from January to June in six major countries in Southeast Asia were 1.7 million, unchanged from the same period of the previous year.
Thailand and Indonesia are the two major markets. Thailand, where consumption is strong, increased by 7% year-on-year, while Indonesia, which faces a decline in resource prices, decreased by 13%. Thailand could be ranked first this year for the first time in six years.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has begun manufacturing the basic structure of wind turbines at the Nagasaki Shipyard, where excess capacity exists. This is because MHI’s specialty LNG carriers are monopolized by Korean manufacturers and MHI is not receiving orders. Now, they take on non-shipbuilding jobs and help maintain the employment of the shipyard. Their Nagasaki Shipyard started manufacturing the basic structure that supports large wind turbines. Since the shipyard has a space for handling large parts of the ship, it can also be used to manufacture wind turbines.
In the August edition of the Economic Trend Report (Green Book), the Korean Ministry of Planning and Finance defined the recent Korean economy this way: “production has increased moderately but exports and investments continue to be sluggish”.
インドネシアで日中の建設機械大手の争いが激しくなっている。中国市場の伸びが鈍化するなか、中国の三一重工は新たな収益源を求めて海外展開を加速する。
東南アジアを牙城とするコマツは中価格機の投入や保守拠点の拡大で対抗する。中国に続く成長市場をどこが制するかは、アジアでの建機市場の勢力図にも影響する。
PSR Analysis: Isuzu has agreed to form a business alliance with Sweden’s Volvo in the Truck field and to acquire Volvo’s UD Trucks subsidiary. The amount of the acquisition depends on the negotiations, but Isuzu sees UD Trucks as a business size of 250 billion yen.
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