To be honest, FUNAI is not that familiar to us in Japan.  Funai is an electric appliance maker of Japan, but like everyone, I know Sony, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, Sharp, Sanyo, Kenwood or Pioneer  better than Funai.

The reason why I write about Funai here is that Funai became the 2nd company in the USA in sales result of TV sets.

This is very surprising because FUNAI is not sold everywhere in Japan, and isn’t regarded as a top company of TV sets.  But people of the USA like to buy it.

News says it’s because FUNAI is far cheaper like Korean company, Samsung, and Funai got Philips by M&A in the USA, so Funai started selling Philips brand through the channel of Philips sales network.

The USA is suffering by the economic recession. Price is the most important motive for people’s decision of purchase, and Philips can give them a good image.

I once used Funai’s TV in New Zealand, but it was not bad at all.  I too am influenced by company image when buying something, but like my case,  it may be good to use some new items before we decide by it’s name only.

Actually,  I’ve never used AKAI,  AIWA, TEAC, UNIDEN, or some other smaller Japanese companies goods for a long time.

But it’s really interesting that I often see these brand more in the overseas cities than in Japan.  And when I used them, I was really satisfied with the quality.

Fanai or many like above, we Japanese need to see more good companies in the world or even here in Japan.